And most interesting is this; a brief look into Ripper history brings us back to the name, Joseph Chandler.
From Casebook: Jack the Ripper's 'timeline' page, which outlines the key events in the course of the Ripper's known murders:
"...September 12, 1888 — Coroner Wynne E. Baxter begins the inquest into murder of Annie Chapman at the Whitechapel Working Lads' Institute — adjouned until the 13th.-- Inspector Joseph Luniss Chandler is quoted in the Star as saying the 'bloodstains' found on the fence in the yard of 25 Hanbury Street were simply urine stains..."
To those with a more casual knowledge of Ripper history, Frederick Abberline is the Inspector most often associated with the case - he's been depicted in movies, most recently by Johnny Depp in the fictionalized movie version of the Ripper tale, From Hell.
But a slightly more in-depth study will bring up Inspector Joseph Chandler, H Division, Metropolitan Police.
It's the kind of detail an subtle, clever Ripper afficionado would know offhand, but not the kind of detail someone who perhaps only saw a movie, or an occasional documentary on the subject, might bother to recall.
The Zodiac Killer was nothing if not clever, and subtle.
He has been to the library in town, a less-than-modern facility to be sure, but they had newspaper archives, that's what mattered.
Now it's cold, night is falling, and he's still looking for the tombstone. He walks with his arms tight at his side, hands in pockets. A man of medium height, with graying brown hair and gray eyes behind heavy-framed glasses.
He knew he'd remembered the name right, and is still tickled at how perfect the name will be - he's learned that people don't always put two and two together the way he'd once thought. If they had, he wouldn't be free right now, walking across dead winter grass in this out-of-the-way Texas cemetery, looking for the grave of a boy with a very special name.
Funny how it came together, like an elegantly rendered mathematical formula. Symmetrical, like that radian symbol he's so fond of, so familiar with.
Now, just before the light gets too dim and he will need to leave, he finds the stone.
Joseph Chandler, born March 11, 1937. Close enough to the man's own age, a little younger - even better.
The man's impassive face shifts, his lips almost curve into a smile.
Images of merrye olde London, misty Whitechapel flicker in his mind. He's never been there, but he is sure he can almost smell the place.
He takes a little spiralbound notepad from his pocket and with stubby pencil he takes pains to write down the correct spelling of the name, the date of birth. The man who will soon be Joseph Chandler to the rest of the world has slighlty slanted printing, letters start neat and straight and slowly lean down and to the right of the page as he writes. On the other side of the page he uses to note the deceased Joseph Chandler's info there are a few odd symbols, some of them astrological in origin, others taken straight from one of the code books he studied in the Navy.
Article comments
1 - Embersage
Steve, As usual I am impressed with your work. Your right about the fact that we have been discussing Dennis Rader's obsession with the Zodiac Killer. I have been working along side you as well as the others on these cases for a while now. We may never know the face behind the mask. Yet he has left us with some answers, as Rader tried to do. Hiding them in puzzles and codes. We may never have all the answers to who and why. Yet we will keep on searching. For in knowledge there is power.
2 - kat self
I have been blogging on crime rant.com. I have compiled a massive file linking B.T.K. tot the unsolved Zodiac murders. I have uncovered interesting tibits such as a Zodiac letter and a map made by B.T.K. both sighed with the initals r.H. and a Japanese connection on two Zodiac writings. There's plenty of more solid connections too. I'd like to see B.T.K. prosecuted for all his crimes. I'd like to blog with like minded researchers.
3 - intelligert
It's a mnisconception to think that it takes a genius to pose such ciphers. A 7 year old would be capable of doing this. If you have only a couple hundred of letters it's very difficult to break it.
How can you claim his letters had an intellectual appeal? they are more like from a smart annoying boy.
And btw, the cipher was solved by a teacher-couple. Imagine, the wife had a profession herself - crazy times those 60ies!!!
best wishes.