TZMC - History of The Zodiac / Manson Connection Website

History of The Zodiac / Manson Connection Website

This timeline is a work in progress. If and when more information becomes available it will be included but it is likely some facts were never documented. The dates of much of this history and most of the <Screen Shots> (click on each one for a visual history) were obtainable thanks to Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.

On the <Screen Shot> pages scroll to the bottom of each page

and click on Back to return to where you left the timeline.

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1999-04-13

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ZodiacMurders.com Domain is established. At the very first the site was only one page with the introduction on it and Jim Nelson’s address for ordering the book. Webgraphixx first designed and maintained the site. The logo was in a red and black motif with all other lettering being white with some yellow on a solid red

background. It stayed this way until at least 2000-11-09.

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2001-04-01

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By this date the first pages of the site had been established and the main portion of the page had been changed to white lettering on a black background. The characters Zodiac used in his cryptograms became the background theme for the

site. There had been 2,323 “hits” on the site.

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2001-04-22

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The ZodiacMurders.com website was not being actively updated or maintained. So around this date is when Jim Nelson took over being Webmaster / Editor of the site. At some time between the previous date and this one the victims.htm page went online with its links to the new victim_bates.htm, victim_bennedict.htm and victim_johns.htm pages. And there were a few other new pages. These were some of the first additions to the site made by Nelson during his renovation.

2001-06-07

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By this date the site had grown to approximately 25 pages.

2001-07-24

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By this date there had been 3,587 “hits” on the site and the davis.htm page had

gone online providing information about suspect Bruce Davis.

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2001-07-31

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At some time between the previous date and this one the victim_tan.htm page went online.

2001-08-01

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The bennedict_pic.htm page with a link from the victim_bennedict.htm page went online having her picture and a newspaper article about her murder.

2001-08-01

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The davis.htm page was updated.

2001-08-25

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At 17:46 hours on this date Jim Nelson posted on the ZodiacKiller.com Message Board saying that he was taking over maintaining the ZodiacMurders.com website that had been basically abandoned before he inherited the job.

2001-09-29

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By this date there had been 4,699 “hits” on the site.

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2001-10-06

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At 14:07 hours on this date Jim Nelson posted on the ZodiacKiller.com Message Board that the necessary changes to ZodiacMurders.com had been completed, new information had been added to the site and the site was back in business.

2001-10-27

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By this date the External Examination pages of the Bates autopsy report had been added to the victim_bates.htm page. This was an exclusive first viewing of this part of the report. Also the victim_tan.htm page was rewritten and put online. And the Updates page had been added. At first the only way to access this was by clicking on the link on the home page. The disclaimer notice had been added at the top of the home page and the hit counter had been changed to a visitor counter with there being a count of 1,348 visitors. The first steps in changing the color scheme from the red/black motif to the current blue scheme had been made in regards to the lettering on the site.

2001-11-08

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The victim_sd_honeymoon.htm page (about the San Diego Honeymoon Murders)

and the victim_gaul_sharp.htm page both went online.

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At some time during this period all web pages were converted from .htm to .html.

2002-06-29

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The more_davis_pics.html page and its link from the davis.html page went online.

2002-07-14

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Barbara Hoyt’s picture was added to the letter_parole.html page. This page was later renamed to hoyt_letter_to_parole_board.html.

2002-07-21

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As of this date the conversion from the red/black motif to the current blue scheme

was continuing. At this time the logo was being changed.

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2002-07-27

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The davis_editor_pic.html page and its link from the davis.html page went online. This page gives a Red Phantom-like signature comparison.

2002-07-27

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The davis_weapons.html page and its link from the davis.html page went online showing the comparison of a Radom 9mm gun to a Colt .45.

2002-07-28

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The family_page.html page went online. This was later renamed to the manson_family_page.html.

2002-07-29

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The victim_sb_murders.html page went online giving information about the Santa

Barbara Murders.

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2002-08-10

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The family_page.html page was updated with an image of a portion of some Manson artwork showing his penchant for using the Zodiac’s crossed-circle signature symbol. And there was a link to the CharlieManson.com website to see the whole piece of artwork done by Manson.

2002-08-10

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The suspects.html page was updated with a link to the Zodiac Vortex website for the feature of morphing Bruce Davis’ picture into the Zodiac wanted poster.

2002-09-27

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Information of Kathleen Johns’ passing was posted on the victim_johns.html

page. The actual date of her death was posted later.

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2002-10-21

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Information of Dave Peterson’s passing was posted on the quotes.html page. The actual date of his death was posted later.

2002-11-14

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The fbi_letter_71.html page went online. The page was later renamed to 1971-04-02_letter_to_fbi.html.

2002-11-14

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The victim_jane_doe_1969.html page went online.

2002-11-19

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The autopsy_files.html page went online. This page gave links to autopsy reports. There were only five reports available at first. There were more to come.

The Bates autopsy report pages were removed from the victim_bates.html page and the autop_bates.html pages went online.

The autop_gaul.html pages went online.

The autop_habe.html pages went online.

The autop_sharp.html pages went online.

The autop_tashman.html pages went online.

There was a separate web page for each page of the autopsy reports. They were later combined into one web page for each individual autopsy report.

2002-11-19

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By this date the logo transition had been completed and the page menu had been

rearranged. The "New Look" was basically finished.

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2003-10-20

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The nineteen_spaces.html page went online explaining the underline on the Confession Letter.

2003-10-20

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The 340_code.html and the peterson_code_work.html pages went online showing the extensive work Dave Peterson did in trying to decipher the code.

2004-01-27

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The ch9_letter.html page went online. The explanation of the Channel Nine letter was still to come.

2004-01-27

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The ch9_envelope.html went online. This was a World Exclusive first ever viewing of this envelope.

2004-01-27

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The autop_jensen.html page went online.

2004-01-27

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The davis.html page was updated.

2004-02-06

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At some time between 2004-01-23 and this date the final part of the new color scheme had been implemented - the lettering color was changed from white to a

tan/orange color.

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2004-02-10

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The 74_christmas_card.html page went online. This was the first time the Zodiac Christmas card sent to Mary Pilker, Donna Lass' sister, had ever been seen by the public. It was another exclusive for this website. The page was later renamed 1974_christmas_card.html.

2004-02-17

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The pertinent_info.html page went online. The first links from this page were to:

bates_related.html page

ferrin_mageau_related.html page

jensen_faraday_related.html page

car_abductions.html page

All of these pages went online on this date.

2004-02-17

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The tex_talk.html page went online giving Tex Watson’s explanation of Helter Skelter.

2004-02-21

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The Doe Network flyer on Donna Lass was posted on the victim_lass.html page.

2004-02-21

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The Doe Network flyer on Robin Graham was posted on the victim_graham.html page.

2004-02-24

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The cm_handprint.html page went online. The page was later renamed as manson_handprint.html.

2004-02-24

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The davis.html page was updated.

2004-03-04

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The victim_sd_honeymoon.html page was updated. The 1964 police report was added.

2004-03-08

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The car_abductions.html page was updated.

2004-03-27

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At some time between 2004-01-27 and this date the exclusive Kathleen Johns

Interview was first offered for sale on cassette tape.

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2004-03-30

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The davis_handwriting.html page and link from the davis.html page went

online.

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2004-04-20

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The davis_handwriting.html page was updated.

2004-04-26

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The sacramento_murders.html page with the linked Sacramento Bee newspaper articles all went online.

2004-05-24

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The autop_benedict.html and autop_bennallack.html autopsy reports went online.

2004-05-27

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The victim_hood_garcia.html page went online.

2004-06-02

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At some time between 2004-03-02 and this date the Manson Eye in the logo began looking around causing one poster on the ZodiacKiller.com Message Board to mention that he jumped out of his chair the first time he noticed it was

moving.

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2004-06-05

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The victim_habe.html page was updated with the newspaper article.

2004-06-12

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The victim_graham.html page was updated with the newspaper article.

2004-06-20

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The want_ads.html and link from the davis.html page went online.

2004-08-11

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At some time between 2004-06-02 and this date the shading of the word

“Connection” in the logo was altered.

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2004-08-14

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The pugh_British_paper_article.html page with link from the family_page.html page went online.

2004-08-16

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The victim_sb_murders.html page was updated with information from a schoolmate of victims Domingos and Edwards about another water connection.

2004-08-24

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The autopsy_interpretations.html page went online. Dr. Sue Norris had made observations on several of the autopsy reports that were posted on the site.

2004-08-28

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The jensen_faraday_related.html page was updated with an account of the “car chase” given by the driver of the sports car that was involved in the “chase.”

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2004-11-20

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The ch9_letter.html page was updated with the analysis of the letter finally being put online.

2005-02-07

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The afa-source.html page went online. This gave another possible source for the

Zodiac’s crossed-circle sign.

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2005-04-04

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The zodiac_progressed_age.html page went online showing Sandra Betts’ drawing of what the Zodiac suspect may have looked like in 1999.

2005-06-21

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The zodiac_progressed_age.html page was renamed as the zodiac_rendition.html page and other Sandra Betts drawings were added.

2005-06-30

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The cm_letter_12-20-71.html page went online. This was a letter to a Catholic Priest. This page was later renamed as the 1971-12-20_manson_letter.html.

2005-07-11

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The ch9_letter.html interpretation was updated with more information.

2005-08-24

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The zelms_related.html page went online. This page reported about the interview Howard Davis had with Diana Zelms, SFPD officer Eric Zelms’ widow. This was

A New World Exclusive

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2006-05-08

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The zelms_related.html page was updated with a letter from Sandra Betts.

2006-05-24

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The Tan autopsy interpretation was added to the autopsy_interpretations.html page.

2006-06-10

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By this date the Kathleen Johns Interview was being offered on CD as well as

cassette tape. The cassettes were eventually phased out.

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2006-07-16

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A frame from the DVD “Manson” was added to the more_davis_pics.html page. This is an image of Bruce Davis descending a courtroom staircase with a very stern look on his face.

2007-02-26

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TheZodiacMansonConnection.com Domain is established with a new service

provider to replace ZodiacMurders.com.

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2007-03-06

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The new website goes online. Both sites were online until 2008-04-13 but only TZMC was being updated.

2007-03-07

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Dave Peterson's newspaper article about the first interview with Mike Mageau is posted on the ferrin_mageau.html page. It is the first update to the new site.

2007-03-12

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The cm_and_the_zodiac_symbol.html page went online. The page name was later changed to manson_and_the_zodiac_symbol.html. The site needed to be reformatted. The pages needed to be widened to fill the newer computer monitor screens. As of this date the pages were wider but the top blue field was not yet widened and the logo was still centered on the narrower page width. Other

reformatting of individual pages also still needed to be done.

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2007-03-15

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As of 02:10 hours on this date the site reformatting was finished. There were over

125 pages and close to 300 images.

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2007-03-25

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The Paul Stine autopsy report and interpretation went online.

2007-04-01

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This date was chosen for the official start of record keeping for TZMC.

2007-04-08

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Howard Davis’ Voice Stress Analysis testing page and link from the Pertinent Information page went online.

2007-07-26

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Howard Davis’ Notarized Statement page and link from the Pertinent Information page went online.

2007-11-05

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The autop_radetich.html autopsy report page went online.

2008-04-13

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The ZodiacMurders.com Domain goes off-line and is made available for purchase.

2008-05-16

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Diana Zelms’ email, confirming the interview she had with Howard Davis, is posted on the zelms_related.html page.

2008-06-03

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An Elyria, Ohio newspaper article on Marina Habe is posted on the car_abductions.html page.

2008-06-11

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A Reno, Nevada newspaper article about Zodiac claiming Donna Lass as his victim is posted on the victim_lass.html page.

2008-06-12

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By this date the ZodiacMurders.com Domain is still for sale. ZM was later taken over by someone in Frankfurt, Germany. But as of January 2012 it is just a page with links to lawyers and "related" sites.

2008-08-14

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The davis_1980_court_docs.html page went online. These were transcripts of the court proceedings where Bruce Davis tried to get his convictions overturned.

2008-09-01

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The 2008_manson_letter_to_ava_editor.html page went online.

2008-09-14

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The lass_related.html page went online.

2008-09-14

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The victim_roberts.html page went online. This was another TZMC exclusive.

2008-09-26

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The stine_related.html page and its link from the Pertinent Information page went online. This page has the Pellisetti/Fouke accounts of 10/11/69. Also, by this date the menu list had been rearranged and a link to the updates page was now a

part of the list.

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2008-10-12

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At some time between 2008-04-03 and this date the bolinas_mt-tam_map.html page was added showing how close these two locations were to each other. This map is only accessable from either the victim_roberts.html or the victim_tan.html pages and acts as a link between them.

2008-12-09

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The johns_police_reports.html page and its link from the Pertinent Information page went online. This was another exclusive presentation. Also, at around this date, original background music had been added to the site. This feature was removed before 2009-01-19 because it prevented some visitors from being able

to log on to the site.

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2009-01-16

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The Tan autopsy went online and the victim_tan.html page was updated.

2009-01-16

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The victim_johns.html page was updated with pictures taken in 2008 of where

she lived in the 1970s.

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2009-02-09

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This is the first date that PayPal is available for online purchases from the site.

2009-03-14

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The anaheim_riverside_map.html page and its link from the Pertinent Information page went online showing the proximity of these two cities. It gives other information about Bruce Davis, gives links to the davis.html and victim_bates.html pages and acts as a link between them.

2009-03-24

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The lass_related.html page was updated with Mary Pilker’s bio of Donna Lass, Charles Manson’s California Driver's License and other information including an anonymous 2007 card/letter to Mary Pilker (Donna Lass' sister.) This card had some unsettling features on it making it seem like it was a threat from Zodiac. By 2009-03-31 some ZodiacKiller.com message board posters were able to identify and locate the sender! We left a message on the alleged sender's answering machine. A short time later the author of the card called back and admitted to sending the card. The reason stated why the sender did not sign the card was that Mary Pilker did not know her and she simply wanted her to go online to check our website as well as ZodiacKiller.com, hence the material on the card. She apologized for causing any problems or upsetting Mary, etc. We are happy this incident was resolved and thank those that helped solve the incident. This card was removed from the webpage shortly afterwards leaving only the picture of Donner Pass with the Zodiac's new symbol superimposed on it.

2009-03-26

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The anaheim_riverside.html page was updated.

2009-04-02

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The mellin_cindy_newspaper_articles.html page and its link from the victim_mellin.html page went online. These articles were acquired in March 2009.

2009-04-11

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The hood_garcia_newspaper_articles.html page and its link from the victim_hood_garcia.html page went online. These articles were acquired in March 2009.

2009-05-27

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Additional information was added to some of the autopsy reports.

2009-06-18

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The crockett_merrick.html page went online. This page was a News Flash with information about prospector Paul Crockett and film director Laurence Merrick.

2009-06-20

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The Ask Howard Davis Q and A feature was added to the site.

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2009-07-02

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As of 00:00 hours on this date there had been visitors to TZMC from 3,500 different cities of the world - 2,399 US and 1,101 cities from 100 nations - since 2007-04-01. This is with approximately five months of data that is unobtainable.

2009-08-19

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The ch9_envelope.html page was updated with new information on the apple drawn on the envelope. The ch9_apple.html page with a close-up of the apple and its link from the envelope page were added.

2009-08-20

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The ford_zodiac_car.html page was updated with a Beatles Anthology reference.

2009-09-09

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The detective_davis.html page went online. After years of searching for him, Detective Charles Davis found us when he came across The Zodiac / Manson Connection site on the Internet.

2009-09-16

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Shortly before this date the z-like_letter.html page went online as a Shocking Discovery This letter was found by a poster on the ZodiacKiller.com message board. This was a letter that had definite Manson references. On this date the page had new Information Added - comparisons of the handwriting on this letter to Zodiac's handwriting went online.

2009-09-25

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On this date it was announced that Susan Atkins of the Manson Family had died in prison the day before. There was a record setting (to this date) 696 sessions from all over the world on TZMC on this date - 231 of those sessions were referred from elsewhere. (This is now the 3^rd most visitors in one day to log on to TZMC.) The Keywords used most often on search engines were "Zezozoze Zadfrack" which was the name Manson gave to Atkins' son. The name.html page received the most hits - 615. This was the only place on site where the name Zezozoze Zadfrack is mentioned. (But now it is here as well.)

2009-11-23

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By this date Charles Manson's Release Papers from Terminal Island FCI in 1967

were being offered for sale on the site.

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2010-03-11

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Newspaper articles were added to the victim_roberts.html page.

2010-03-13

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Information about Bruce Davis was added to the ch9_letter.html page.

2010-03-19

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Newspaper articles were added to the victim_gaul_sharp.html page.

2010-03-25

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The manson_and_the_zodiac_symbol.html page was updated with Celtic Cross/ Aryan Brotherhood references.

2010-04-20

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Information about the LAPD was added to the ch9_letter.html page.

2010-05-01

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The 1969-10-13_sfpd_wanted_poster.html page was updated with a sharper image of the poster.

2010-05-13

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The ch9_letter.html page was updated with new information about Bruce Davis.

2010-05-25

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As of 00:00 hours on this date there had been visitors to TZMC from 5,000 different cities of the world - 3,359 US and 1,641 cities from 109 nations - since 2007-04-01. This is with approximately five months of data that is unobtainable.

2010-07-02

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The washed_pen_card.html page and its links from the Pertinent Information page and the Letter and Articles page went online describing a possible prediction made by Zodiac.

2010-07-14

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The davis_high_school_pic.html page with its link from the davis.html page went online. This was a rare high school photo of Bruce Davis and a link was provided to the Knoxville News-Sentinel newspaper, the source of the photo.

2010-08-09

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2010-08-11

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The birds_fly_south.html page and its link from the Letters and Articles page went online. This was to show that the first time this Zodiac paste-up message, sent to the Sacramento Bee newspaper, was ever made public was when it was published in The Zodiac / Manson Connection book first printed in 1997. It was provided by Dave Peterson. Howard Davis also made comments on the paste-up.

2010-08-18

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The birds_fly_south.html page was updated with a page from an FBI file regarding this paste-up.

2010-08-31

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As of 00:00 hours on this date there had been visitors to TZMC from 5,500 different cities of the world - 3,621 US and 1,879 cities from 110 nations - since 2007-04-01 (40 months). This is with approximately five months of data that is unobtainable.

2010-09-14

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A little known high school yearbook photo of Bruce Davis was posted on the site along with a link to the Knoxville News-Sentinel newspaper that was the source of the photo.

2010-09-24

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Bruce Davis' sister's 2009 letter to the Board of Prison Hearings and its link from the Pertinent Information page went online.

2010-12-31

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As of 00:00 hours on this date there had been 64,000 sessions on TZMC from 6,121 different cities of the world - 3,853 US and 2,268 cities from 124 nations - since 2007-04-01 (44 months). This is with approximately five months of data that is unobtainable so the total number of sessions is actually much higher. This is all that could be documented. The city totals were also probably reached sooner.

2011-02-09

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2011-02-22

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The guest_book_signature.html page and its link from the Pertinent Information page went online. This shows that Manson and some of his Family were in the general area of Benicia on the date of the first Zodiac attack.

2011-03-21

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At 11:30 hours PST on this date the new reduced price of The Zodiac / Manson Connection book went into effect. At this time also the next modification to the website's appearance also went online. The lettering only of the links in the menu, as it had been for over 10 years, was replaced with buttons. At 11:45 hours the first visitor to see the new buttons was from the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay.

2011-07-22

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On this date there were 754 sessions setting a new one day record. There were 296 referrals from all sources. It is not completely known why there were that many sessions.

2011-08-27

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Another example of Manson using Zodiac's crossed-circle symbol was posted on the manson_and_the_zodiac_symbol.html page. This was from a piece of artwork that was made by Manson and was being auctioned on MurderAuction.com.

2012-01-25

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This timeline of TZMC's history and its link from the Pertinent Information page went online giving how this website developed and significant dates in its history. It will be updated with future happenings and if any additional past information can be gathered. After the timeline was added there were 146 pages to the website with 422 images.

2012-01-30

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A button for this timeline was added to the site's menu.

2012-04-12

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The ZodiacMurders.com Domain name expired on this date and was pending renewal or deletion. It was for sale until 10:08 hours on 2012-05-17 PDT. Someone in Colorado Springs, Colorado has since this date taken over ownership of the Domain name.

2012-04-15

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On this date an Associated Press article was put on the Internet about the seemingly unlikely friendly relationship between former Manson Family member Barbara Hoyt and Debra Tate, the last living Tate family member. Because of this article TZMC had its 3^rd busiest day ever (now 5^th) with 407 sessions recorded. There were 111 referrals from Yahoo's Search Engine and Image Search. There were 98 referrals from all other sources and at least 47 of those were from Google's US based Search Engine and Image Search. Most Keywords used were related to Barbara Hoyt. The hoyt_letter_to_parole_board.html page, originally put online in 2001, was visited 201 times. This was by far the most hits of the day for any one page and was 33.17% of the total 606 page views for the day.

2012-05-21

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The Zodiac Killer Related Videos DVD went on sale at 09:00 hours Pacific Time. This exclusive DVD contains the only interview ever recorded of Darlene Ferrin's father. Plus the only recorded interviews of Darlene's sister and another lady who

had a very scary experience on a Los Angeles freeway in 1970.

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2012-07-18

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This date was the 3^rd busiest day in the history of TZMC (to this date (It is now 4th busiest.)) with 568 individual sessions recorded - 398 of those were referred from elsewhere on the Internet.

2012-07-19

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This date was the 5^th busiest day in the history of TZMC (now 7^th) with 345 individual sessions recorded - 222 of those were referred from elsewhere on the Internet.

2012-07-24

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Two newspaper articles were added to the Robin Graham victim page concerning California Highway Patrol procedure changes due to her disappearance.

2012-08-09

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A link to a YouTube video of LAPD Chief Ed Davis announcing the solution to the Tate/LaBianca murders in December 1969 was added to the ch9_letter.html page. An explanation of why this 1978 letter to KHJ-TV in Los Angeles was probably Manson Family inspired is given.

2012-09-30

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On this date, Brian Davis, host of the Tate LaBianca Radio Program, interviewed Howard Davis about Zodiac suspect Bruce Davis. This was the most complete interview Howard has been able to give. The podcast of this interview is freely available to download or listen to at StarCityRadio. See the Related Site Links page on this site.

2012-10-04

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On this date, Bruce Davis went before a California Parole Board panel for the 27^th time during his 40 years spent behind bars. There were 394 individual sessions recorded on the site making it the 5^th busiest day in TZMC history to this date. (It is now the 6th busiest day.)

2012-10-05

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On this date, the 70^th birthday of Bruce Davis and the day after his 27^th parole hearing, there were 726 different sessions recorded in the statistics for TZMC. This is the new 2^nd highest number of sessions in one day for the website.

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