◆ SpookStack

In his 37 years as a handwrit- “aeetmp expert, no case has frustrated arsesherwood Morrill as much as the “esodiac killer whose bizarre and poastful letters are believed to be ~s é Key to his identity. “T'd like to find him before | e,” the 63-year-old Morrill said. . salt he dies, I wish he'd leave a ‘weote saying who he was.”- a -» Since Zodiac’s calculated car- age in the late 1960s, Morrill has alyzed more than 9,000 writing mples | fox-Jaw enforcement ficials on Zodiac’s trail. e€ printing better than anyone im. earth, even well enough to ot it on a bank deposit slip. ] “And he. believes, as does San ancisco Homicide Detective ve Toschi, that Zodiac's print- sag may give him away because e may well use it every day. “Pm sure this is his natural ndprinting, and he was used to terview. “It is so consistent. ] pn't think he uses script.” YODIAC’ ALPHABET */,etters X and Z missing -He knows Zodiac's distinc- eaping it a lot,” Morrill said in an . handwriting’s not on wail for Zodiac — The handwriting samples poured in during the peak of Zodiac's activities. But now — though Morrill went into business for himself in December 1973 after 39 years with the state-. “Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation — the samples . Gribble in at a rate of about one a month. - In the last four years, there have been no known written communiques from Zodiac, yet the mass murderer’s lettering is fresh in Morrill's mind. “His printing is distinctive,” he said. “He is an intelligent guy and we know he deliberately misspells some words because he sometimes spells them correctly. “His punctuation and para- graphing are perfect. His tenses and syntax are perfect. His vo- cabulary is good. . The letter K is particularly outstanding. It’s made in three distinct strokes rather than the usual two.” Still, Zodiac was careful when he wrote the bloody details of his killings, threatened to attack a school bus and dia- gramed a bomb that experts say would have detonated. : Using a ball point pen he - wrote on various types of paper, but it generally was cheap, dime- ~ store paper without water marks _ that could be traced to a manu- facturer. And he never left any fingerprints on the paper or“ envelopes. His one departure from this format was after the 1966 murder of a Riverside coed — a murder authorities believe Zodiac sought Se cemnossemsiemeenell SHERWOOD MORRILL LABORED OVER ZODIAC CASE ‘I'd like to find him before! die,’ the handwriting expert sa to conceal for some reason. Though letters then were not signed. “Zodiac,” Morrill deter- mined that typewritten letters on teletype paper were from the killer. - ae Investigators were unable to trace the paper to any military - installations that use teletypes, yet there were some indications the killer was associated with the - « », Footprints at two of the _ tuurder scenes appeared to have < . been made by military-type shoes, and some witnesses said the killer wore pleated military- type pants or a military-type . ~ windbreaker jacket..:* ~ . The campus killing and the - possible military connection sent Morrill on the arduous task of checking handwriting samples of thousands of college students in the Riverside area and of mi men stationed near Riversi: in the Vallejo area, where se killings occurred. “The one big fault in ; through applications for sc is that some are typed and had a signature,” Morrill plained. “Script writing printing are different.” ’ Morrill — who has handwriting identification - involving : black: activist Ay “Davis, mass killer Juan Co and the late billionaire Ho: Hughes — said he would hat ‘trouble positively identifyin; «diac in court if it came to th. “Handwriting is as dis tive as fingerprints," he “And (handwriting identifica " is admissible in court.” Tim Reiter: