On December 29, 1969, the San Francisco Police Department sends a list of twenty suspects regarding the Zodiac matter to the FBI (here the telegram) through the local Bureau office.
The FBI experts in Washington D.C. reply on 12 January 1970 underlining an oddity in the December-29-list, i.e. the fact that the suspects have “same or similar birth dates.”
Two days later, the FBI office in Francisco answers that they have just been informed by an SFPD detective that a self-proclaimed Zodiac tried to reach the famous attorney Melvin Belli by making a phone call at his home.
He asserted to the housekeeper that it was his birthday.
Around the same time the alleged Zodiac phoned the Belli home, the real serial killer had sent a letter to the lawyer, postmarked December 20, 1969.
The day coincided with the one Zodiac had killed a teenage couple on Lake Herman Road, Vallejo, a year before.
December 20 was also Joe Bevilacqua’s date of birth and the last day the issue of the magazine used by the Monster of Florence to obtain the clippings for his 1985-message was in the newsstands.
In his letter to Belli, Zodiac writes:
"I cannot remain in control for much longer."
During the phone call with the alleged Zodiac, Belli’s housekeeper, Erna, informed the unknown man that the attorney was in Europe.
He replied:
"I can't wait. Today's my birthday."
Both Zodiac and the anonymous caller tried to contact Belli at the same address, in the same period of time, expressing with similar phrases the impossibility of “waiting,” and the same urgent need to talk to the attorney.
When was the phone call made?
The personal information on the suspects of the list of 29 December 1969 has been redacted, however, there is a span of 10 days on which the call could have been made, from December 20 to December 29, 1969.
Indeed, according to an article by Paul Avery in the San Francisco Chronicle of December 29, 1969, Belli was ‘en route’ to Germany on December 20. So, he was already in Europe or about to arrive.
Zodiac’s letter to Belli was opened after Christmas and the release of the news dates back to December 27.
It is possible that the phone call to Belli’s home was made before the news of the letter was released.
Until December 1969, Zodiac wrote only to the press. Why did he decide to make contact with Belli?
A couple of months earlier, a man posing as him spoke just with Belli on a live tv show hosted by Jim Dunbar on KGO-TV. The police ruled out that it was not Zodiac since none of the witnesses recognized his voice, but the news received media coverage nevertheless.
The fake killer would be later tracked down by the police.
Writer Robert Graysmith believes that the “birthday call” came from the true Zodiac, while the majority of the amatorial sleuths and researchers of the case, like blogger Michael Butterfield, is of the opposite idea. They claim it was the impostor, who, they say, would be born in early January.
They seem to have overlooked the detail regarding the list of suspects with “same or similar birth dates” that was sent to FBI headquarters before January, on December 29, 1969.
So, which of the two was the caller behind the “birthday call”? The fake Zodiac or the real one?
In the decryption of the Z340 cipher sent in November 1969, Zodiac himself says not to be the man who had spoken on television. Yet, he too subsequently contacted Belli by sending him a letter.
What if, in that December 1969, to take back what Zodiac considered “only his”, he decided to act like the impostor and reverse the roles?
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