The Unabomber And The Zodiac Killer

The Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski, died recently in prison. "The Unabomber" wasn't a title that he gave himself. From a remote cabin in the woods of Montana he mailed homemade package bombs often to universities and airlines, and others he associated with allowing nature and society to be destroyed by modern technology. The name of the FBI file on him was "Unabom" with the "Una" meaning "universities and airlines".

The Unabomber was pretty smart. He received a scholarship to enter Harvard at age 16, after skipping two grades in school. After graduation from Harvard he went on to get a PhD in mathematics. He was hired as a professor at the prestigious University of California at Berkeley, in the San Francisco Bay area.

But he apparently didn't have the personality to be a teacher, and later resigned. He moved back with his parents in Illinois for a while before choosing to live a very isolated life in the cabin in the woods of Montana. It was while living there that he undertook his long campaign of sending package bombs by mail.

It reportedly resulted in the most expensive manhunt in U.S. history, but it came up completely empty. I remember reading once about someone sending a wooden package bomb, primarily to universities and airlines, on average about once a year. A sketch was made of a man wearing a hood and dark glasses, who was seen placing a package in a parking lot, which exploded when picked up. 

The government had no idea who was doing it. The idea did arise that the Unabomber might have some connection to the University of California at Berkeley, because that was the only place that was targeted more than once. Ironically the first person to arrive to aid the person injured by the second bomb was the one who had been injured by the first bomb.

These mail bombings began in 1978. The Unabomber was finally caught in 1996. He had written a manuscript describing his views of how technology was destroying society. He wrote to newspapers and promised to cease mailing bombs if they published it. The Unabomber would write to his brother describing his ideas and his brother, and his wife, recognized his writing in the manuscript. The brother decided that he had to turn him in to save innocent lives.

After the background of the Unabomber was uncovered, something interesting became apparent. There had been a serial killer in the San Francisco Bay area that got a tremendous amount of media attention but was never caught. It was the Zodiac Killer. I know that the FBI eliminated the Unabomber as a suspect in the case of the Zodiac Killer, but the parallels between the two are just plain eerie.

The Zodiac Killer is confirmed as having killed five people, usually with a handgun and wounding others who survived. There were unconfirmed speculation of other killings and letters from the Zodiac that were determined to be hoaxes. Most of his victims were couples on dates. It seems like classic incel killings. A guy who resents not having a girlfriend kills people who are having fun on dates.

What is unusual about the Zodiac Killer, relative to other serial killers, is that the timeframe of his confirmed killings was short, actually less than a year from December 1968 to October 1969, yet he continued writing to authorities for several years afterward.

This is exactly the same timeframe that the reclusive and unsocial future Unabomber was teaching at nearby UC at Berkeley. He left California some time after resigning his position, moving in with his parents for a while before moving to the remote cabin in Montana.

The Zodiac Killer was known for the cryptograms that he sent to newspapers. Like the Unabomber would later do with his manuscript the Zodiac Killer threatened killings if they weren't published. Some of the cryptograms have not yet been solved, one required a team of mathematicians and programmers to solve. The Zodiac Killer must not only have been pretty smart, but very good with both words and mathematics. The characters in the cryptograms that the killer made up himself look like symbols used in mathematics.

The letters and cryptograms that the Zodiac Killer sent have quite a few misspellings. But how could someone who could come up with these unsolvable cryptograms not know how to spell?

When the future Unabomber was in university he amazed teachers with his ability to solve complex math problems. When he was finally arrested a diary, written in code, was found in his cabin. He was also very good with languages, I know that he could speak at least German and Spanish. Wouldn't he be just the one to come up with the very complex and difficult cryptograms of the Zodiac Killer? Two are still unsolved and one took the team of mathematicians and programmers to solve.

The FBI claimed that the fingerprints of the Unabomber and the Zodiac Killer don't match. But could they be sure that they had the Zodiac Killer's fingerprints? Someone clever enough to create these cryptograms is probably smart enough to wear gloves. A call to a police station by the killer was traced to a photo booth, and prints were found on the phone. But it could have been anyone else's prints. Maybe he waited for someone else to use the phone, so that person's prints would be on it, and then handled the phone carefully with gloves. When he killed his final confirmed victim, a taxi driver, he was seen carefully wiping the car down before leaving.

The Unabomber hunted animals in the woods while living in his remote cabin. Nowhere do I see that the Unabomber was into guns while growing up. His father did show him how to survive in the wilderness and he might have fired a gun, but nowhere in anything written about his life did I see anything about an interest in guns.

But yet he was adept enough with a gun to survive mostly by hunting by the time he moved into the wilderness. It seems that he must have gotten some hunting practice somewhere. Could it have been as the Zodiac Killer in California?

Hunting is usually done with long guns, shotguns and especially rifles, which are more powerful and accurate than pistols. A pistol is intended only for close range. Yet the Zodiac Killer killed with a pistol and, when the Unabomber was arrested he was found to have only a pistol.

Like the Unabomber the Zodiac Killer threatened bombings if what he sent to the news wasn't published. He also made a schematic diagram of a bomb. The Unabomber threatened an airliner just as the Zodiac Killer had threatened a school bus.

One parallel that I find really interesting is in the signatures of the two killers. The Zodiac Killer had his own "crosshairs" symbol, like a plus sign superimposed on a circle. The Unabomber signed his correspondence with F.C., for "Freedom Club". What is so interesting is that they both used their signatures on their correspondence in exactly the same way.

Another convincing link is letter writing. The Zodiac Killer wrote so many letters. The Unabomber was also a prolific letter writer, often to his brother. When the Unabomber was in prison he spent much of his time writing letters, some to answer those that were sent to him.

Following is a copy of the Zodiac Killer's 340 character cryptogram. Part of the "crosshairs" symbol is at bottom. Credit to the Wikipedia article "Zodiac Killer".

The clue as to how to decode it is in the second half of the last line. After that is "ZO". We know that he must be signing his name, Zodiac, but the characters must be moved around, according to some pattern.

Now consider the Unabomber's name. It was unknown why the killer called himself "Zodiac". 

Theodore Kaczynski 

If we start with reverse alphabetical order and take one letter, the Z, continuing in reverse alphabetical order we take two consecutive letters, the OD. Continuing in reverse alphabetical order we go back to one letter, the I, and then to the two consecutive letters, the AC, it spells "Zodiac".

Starting from the end of the name, the "i", if we take the required letters and skip the four letters between each time we end up with "The Zodiac". So there are groups of 1, 2 and, 3 letters, separated each by four letters, to get "The Zodiac".

But how would we know this? The Zodiac Killer gave us a clue in that he committed four attacks but only the first, second and third were against couples. The fourth attack was completely different in that it was against a taxi driver. Remember that everything about this is a cryptogram. The actual cryptograms don't give any real clues, they just point in this direction.

When a person signs their name to a document they sign at the end of it. Look at the last line and the second half of the second-to-last line. The capital "I" at the end has a minus sign, -, extending from it's left side. Is this a sign to start on his name in reverse order from the final "I", as described above?

This ending of the cryptogram spells his name, "Kaczynski". It has several mathematical symbols. The last line starts with MD, which means doctor. It also contains a rearranged "PhD" and the MD could be a clue that this means doctorate. Some letters are reversed so what looks like a "9" could be a reversed "P". "MI" is the abbreviation for Michigan, where he got his PhD.

It is interesting that the Zodiac Killer put a 9 in the final line because he sent in a map with his logo of a circle divided into four quadrants. The origin point was Mount Diablo, with north defined as 0, east as 3, south as 6, and west as 9. The University at Berkeley is due west of Mount Diablo. Image from Google Earth.

That explains the mystery of why he would call himself "Zodiac" but his correspondence never mentions anything to do with astrology. Being so much into cryptograms it was because the letters of his name could be rearranged to spell "Zodiac".

I believe that the misspelled words in the Zodiac Killer's letters were clues as to which letters are substituted for other letters in the cryptograms.

The Zodiac's letters state that the cryptograms reveal clues to his identity. But the two that have been decoded offer no such clues at all, just descriptions of how much he enjoys killing. Maybe that is because the clues are not within the cryptograms, rather the cryptograms themselves are the clues.

The clue in the cryptograms is that the killer is obviously very accomplished at mathematics. The first place we would think to look for a mathematician is probably a university. All of the three couples that were attacked by the Zodiac Killer were all around college age, this is another clue pointing toward a college or university.

Look at the sites where the three attacks on college age couples took place. The name of all three begin with a "B". Since the killer was a cryptographer surely this must be a clue. Theodore Kaczynski has no "B" in his name, his middle name is John. There is a "B" in the ending of the cryptogram above.

The killings of couples took place at Benicia, at Blue Rock Springs Park, and at Lake Berryessa. Two of the sites begin with "Be" and the other begins with the color blue.

If the Zodiac Killer was so adept at cryptography wouldn't it make sense that the sites of his killings would have some cryptographic significance?

So the victims were around university age and we know that a university would be the place to look for a mathematician who would be adept at such cryptography. There is a university nearby, UC at Berkeley. The name of the school begins with "Be" and it's school color is blue, along with California Gold. The university actually has it's own shade of blue, known as "Berkeley Blue". 

The Zodiac Killer's final confirmed victim was a driver for the Yellow Cab Company and the taxi was a golden yellow color just like Berkeley's other color. The shooting took place very near the Golden Gate Bridge, as if to leave no doubt that the color of the cab stands for the gold that is the university's other color, blue and gold.

This means we should be looking for a mathematician at Berkeley University, whose name can be respelled as "The Zodiac".

The Zodiac Killer killed with a gun but there is one known exception. The attack at Lake Berryessa took place with a knife. Why would someone who kills with a gun suddenly decide to use a knife? Killing with a gun is so much easier and safer than with a knife. With cryptography being so important here, and the first two letters "Be" pointing to Berkeley, could it be a clue that the Zodiac Killer also has a "K" and an "N" in his name, Theodore Kaczynski?

The Zodiac Killer boasted of killing 37 people, which is generally considered as a gross exaggeration. But remember that this is all about cryptography that reveals his identity. "University of Berkeley Theodore Kaczynski" has 37 letters.

Crossword puzzles are usually square. But the cryptogram above has 17 spaces across and 20 spaces down, which adds up to the same number of people The Zodiac said that he killed. "Theodore Kaczynski" has 17 letters and University of (or at) Berkeley has 20 letters.

The solved 408 character cryptogram also has 17 spaces across. I am surprised that no one seems to have taken note that both cryptograms are 17 across. The 408 character cryptogram was divided into thirds, and each sent to a different newspaper. Each third has 8 characters down. Why would he do this? Was it because "Berkeley" has 8 letters. Also an 8 resembles a "B" and the three shootings of couples were at places that begin with a 'B".

I think this leaves no doubt that the Zodiac Killer became the Unabomber. This is not entirely a new idea but these connections I cannot see have ever been pointed out. 

What I had wondered about is why he called himself "The Zodiac", but his letters never mention anything about astrology or stars, and why he took a taxi for his final known murder if he had a car, and killed the taxi driver instead of a couple. Now we know.

I am sure that there is more than this but a lot of what was sent in was sent by other people. Besides I have had enough of writing about, and thinking about, this psychopath. However it is interesting that in 1978, just before the bombings of the Unabomber began, a letter was received, from supposedly the Zodiac Killer, stating "I am back with you".

If you would like to read more true crime material like this see the compound posting "Investigations", December 2018, some of the sections are about crime.