There was an emerging idea that seemed too crazy to consider: that the Missing Link was an intentional fake issue that attempted to make it appear Dick Geikie was at Stanford in early March 1971. The idea wasn’t really that crazy, given that this was exactly what I thought for many months. If I had not bothered to investigate deeper, I would have just accepted that he was indeed at Stanford in March.

If this idea truly was the case, it would mean that there might be a crime in early March 1971 that Zodiac was making an alibi for. Of course, the only Zodiac verified murders were in 1968 and 69. Zodiac claimed more, but none have been confirmed.

If the fake issue was truly to make it seem like he was at Stanford in March, then there will be a reason, a murder somewhere during early March NOT near Stanford.

We figured the most likely place to look for a murder would be in northern California.

I returned to Google and other search engines, in search of a Zodiac-like crime in northern California in early March 1971. With the date on the issue being March 5, I figured I would type in March 6 as a likely day to start. And there it was.

Lynda Kanes

Cue the Close Encounters music, the papers of the north bay on March 6, 1971 were lit up like a Christmas Tree, headlined by the murder of Lynda Kanes, a college student whose body had been found the day before, March 5, in the hills above Lake Berryessa.

Amazingly, Kanes was one of two murders in northern California that actually were both on February 26. The specifics of both crimes sound much like Zodiac. Sharon Wilson was a junior at Humbolt College, knifed to death out in nature near Eureka. Her body was found near the mouth of the Mad River. But it is just a coincidence, because this crime was confessed to by a local man working as a cowhand.

Lynda Kanes murder also sounded like a Zodiac crime, even more so. But apparently again a coincidence. An individual was arrested, tried and convicted for this crime. Even so, who really killed Lynda Kanes is still a matter of speculation to this day.

Lynda Kanes was a student at Pacific Union College from Porterville, California. As we know, Lake Berryessa victim Brian Hartnell was a PUC student, and Cecelia Shepard had been a year prior before transferring to UC Riverside. Disappearing on February 26, a Napa County Sheriff’s posse began a manhunt for Kanes the next morning. Eventually the search was joined by the general public, including hundreds of students from Pacific Union College. After several days of searching, Kanes body was discovered on March 5, on a mountain road on the west side of Lake Berryessa, the same side as the Sheperd and Hartnell attack.

As reported in the March 6, 1971, Napa Valley Register, a ranking member of the sheriff’s department described it as a “bizarre” murder, but did not elaborate on that description.

Kanes was found with a wire around her neck, but they were not positive that strangulation was the cause of death. The body had been well camouflaged under a pile of rocks, found in an area that had already been searched. It was subsequently reported that the cause of death was blunt force trauma to her head. In addition to the wire around her neck, her fully clothed body was bound by rope and then wrapped in an American flag and doused with a mixture of gasoline and fuel oil. Other items found near the body were a gas can and an old military-style duffel bag. A chilling detail was learned about the flag–A piece of it was ripped off by the killer.

From the moment she went missing, through the discovery of her body, it was widely speculated this was the work of the Zodiac. It was reported that the students of PUC were especially jittery, which would have been quite understandable.

It turns out the flag, the rope, the duffel bag, and the gas can were all the property of Walter Williams, a local man who lived up in those mountains, known as Willie the Woodcutter.

When Willie the Woodcutter was arraigned, people were in disbelief; local citizens, people who knew Willie could not believe that he could be a murderer. Willie was well liked in the community.

People following the Zodiac murders were also in disbelief. The murder was so very much like Zodiac. It was another student from Pacific Union College, just like Celia Shepherd and Brian Hartnell. It was very near the location of their attack, just up into the hills from Lake Berryessa. The murderer ripped off a piece of the American flag that the body was wrapped in, similar to Zodiac ripping off a piece of Paul Stine’s shirt. It was said that they were all waiting for the piece of the flag to show up in the mail–but it never did.

The March 17, 1971, Martinez Morning News reported the arrest of Willie on the front page, the article sharing the front page with news about Zodiac’s recent letter to the Los Angeles Times where he boasts about his “Riverside Activity.” This is noted only as a coincidence.

As the days led up to the trial, more items were found by investigators tied to the accused. Then on July 7, a surprise witness for the prosecution sealed his fate. Walter Williams, aka Willie the Woodcutter was convicted of the crime on July 23, 1971. Williams died in prison in 1978. There are still people who to this day disbelieve he was guilty, conjecturing instead that Lynda Kanes was killed by the Zodiac.

I repeat again Zodiac’s November 9 letter:
“So I shall change the way the collecting of slaves. I shall no longer announce to anyone. When I commit my murders, they shall look like routine robberies, killings of anger, a few fake accidents, etc.”
Earlier I addressed this in regard to making murders look like suicide. It took me months to realize that this is also an open admission Zodiac intends to frame people in some cases. He is going to kill people, and then make it look like something else happened, create a rational explanation that someone else did it and NOT Zodiac.

So let me say it in more plain terms because this is important: Zodiac implies sometimes he will frame someone else for his murders.

If one was going to identify a murder that could be a frame, the Lynda Kanes murder would be a reasonable choice. I say so because of the nature of the facts used to convict Willie show how it could be done and are also so obvious that it begs belief. I mean, there were several possessions of Willie’s just laying near the body. What kind of murderer would just leave all their stuff next to the body? No one is that stupid. Also, the body was wrapped in his flag. Again, who is that stupid? No one. It is so simplistic, the evidence is so bluntly displayed, it really could have been a frame.

Even fifty years later, people are still in disbelief Willie the Woodcutter murdered Lynda Kanes. An article in the May 7, 2021, Napa Valley Register still asks if Lynda Kanes was killed by Willie the Woodcutter, or the Zodiac?
The body was near Lake Berryessa, and near Pacific Union College where Kanes was a student like Brian Hartnell and Cecelia Shepherd had been. The body was wrapped in a flag, and the killer ripped off a swatch of it. For those looking for additional tie-ins, the murder was near Napa State Hospital.

I had gone looking for a murder in early March of 1971 or so, because of the March 5 Stanford Chaparral Missing Link fake issue, a killing somewhere away from Stanford, likely in northern California, with aspects that looked like Zodiac. Lynda Kanes was murdered on February 26, but her body wasn’t found until March 5, the same date as the Chaparral Missing Link. Is that the joke?

Or is the joke something to do with “rip-off?” I searched all press reports of the Willie the Woodcutter trial, and I never, ever saw an explanation why a piece of the flag was torn off, or if that piece had ever been found. Most importantly, I never read any account or even theory of why was it torn off BY Willie? Because unless that can be explained, there is a hole a mile wide in this case and the conviction of Willie the Woodcutter.