The S.F. Chronicle personal ad August 27, 1976

That could be, Sandy. I think this is the real deal, but some of it is hard to make sense of. The people who are supposed to know what all of it means probably did, but for me there are a whole lot of questions that arise. I think Zodiac would have done something other than place a personal ad if he wanted some attention. I just can't get away from the fact that this showed up two days after Fred Manalli's death, and if Zodiac did have a partner then Manalli is the perfect guy.

So what is it going to ultimately take to figure this personal ad out?

I went to the 2014 "TFM" sponsored by Tom Voigt's site.  Former SFPD Detective Vince Reppetto met us at the Stine crime scene and did a Q and A with us.  I asked Reppetto specifically about this ad.  He was unaware of it, didn't have a clue that the ad was ever placed!  

Reppetto was assigned to the cold case back in the 90s.  While I'm sure there must have been acres of material in the files to go through but I really have to wonder why this ad was missed.

For the person that wanted a clearer copy of the ad:

did reppetto give any thoughts on the ad after seeing it? do you know if he is familiar with fred manalli? I had the feeling that the police knew nothing about the ad or at least not back in the 70's when it was placed. I thought they would have been notified about it after it was discovered by someone at morf's or tom's or wherever it was first posted.

JohnFester wrote:So what is it going to ultimately take to figure this personal ad out?

testing manalli's sisters dna maybe?

Eric X wrote:

JohnFester wrote:So what is it going to ultimately take to figure this personal ad out?

testing manalli's sisters dna maybe?

apparently she was willing to do so, but it has not happened yet. I am fairly certain that her DNA would be a match because I think Manalli DID write the letters and that it is his DNA they have on file.

Thanks for posting the clear copy, Deb! I think Eric could be right about why this was overlooked, but it's hard to say for sure.

Minor correction - the "deep real estate" ad was originally published on August 26. It ran again from 08/27-08/30. It was also published in the San Francisco Examiner.

Galaxie500 wrote:Minor correction - the "deep real estate" ad was originally published on August 26. It ran again from 08/27-08/30. It was also published in the San Francisco Examiner.

San Francisco Examiner. 08/26/1976 -

I think Zodiac has written in the personal adds before and probably wrote this add for some attention to himself. I found one that was taken from the movie Dirty Harry , which we know was about Zodiac. It was a copy from a add in the movie in the SF Chron. Only this one was in the Examiner Nov 14th 1994. The SF newspapers were on strike at that time. Someone claiming to be Zodiac, was killing females in Contra Costa County during that time frame. But the police ignored his phone call claiming to be the killer, it was never put in the newspaper. Zodiac may have written letters that were thought to be a copy cat, so doing it as if it was from some "wizard" would get him the attention he craved. I also think the R in the R A could be the name Robert which I do believe is the first name of the true Zodiac. I found that name in two of the ciphers. Perhaps he is R.A.H ? I do believe the RH at Riverside was the best clue to his real name. I have a RH as one of my suspects.