Does the FBI and the SFPD know Dave Toschi hoaxed Zodiac Letters?
Our story starts in the summer of 1976 with Armstead Maupin, Maupin was the author of the Tales of the City serial which became a book that eventually got made into a showtime miniseries starring Laura Linney. He was looking to introduce a murder mystery plot into his series. Bob Popp a chronicle writer introduced him to Dave Toschi star detective for the SFPD. According to Maupin Toschi was a reporter's dream, he reminded Maupin of the Hero in a B-grade detective movie. Maupin wooed by Toschi wanted to make Toschi a character in his story and Toschi agreed. However, Maupin's admiration of Dave Toschi soured when he received three letters signed by college girls requesting he give Dave Toschi more screen time in his serial. Maupin investigated the peculiar fan mail and concluded they came from the same typewriter and the girls that signed them did not exist. He surmised they were sent by Toschi. Maupin felt disrespected by this underhanded attempt to persuade him and quickly stopped using the character.1 Let's fast forward to April 24th, 1978 when the chronicle received the next Zodiac letter.
Maupin thinks Dave Toschi wrote the letter because of the letters cops and robbers style. Maupin meets with Jack O'Shea head of the intelligence bureau for SFPD to tell him his theory that Toschi wrote the letter he tells Maupin "that sounds like Toschi" and "frankly Toschi's a joke in the department. He can get things in the newspaper, but that's about it." Eventually, another cop Jim Tedesco learns of Maupin's accusation and he tells Charles Gain SFPD chief of police. Toschi admits to writing the fake fan mails to Maupin but denies writing the zodiac letter, he gets removed from the Zodiac investigation on June 30, 1978.
The SFPD begins an investigation into Toschi with police chief Gain and Deputy police chief DeAmicis controlling the investigation.
July 7th Toschi is interrogated by Tedesco, he is accused of writing exorcist and 78 zodiac letters.
July 10th
Charles Gain issued a press release stating that "there is reason to doubt whether Zodiac, in fact, wrote the April 24 letter." Deputy police chief DeAmicis tells chronicle "because of ego problems we thought it in the best interest of Dave Toschi and the department to reassign him to the pawnshop detail"
July 18th finally Toschi is cleared of writing the letters, Gain told the chronicle "There is no evidence connecting Inspector David Toschi to a Zodiac letter sent to the Chronicle earlier this year. Gain also says the letter was not written by the suspected killer. Gain calls Toschi "a disturbed personality because of his craving for publicity." we also learn "document examiner in Sacramento have verified as genuine the "Exorcist" letter from Zodiac"
That's where the story usually ends. Let's take stock in a few points. Gain and DeAmicas treating Toschi disrespectfully, embarrassing him with his transfer, and calling him a disturbed personality. They could have completed their investigation first and then decide on his punishment for the Maupin letters instead they punished him first which made him look guilty of writing the zodiac letter.
2) If Toschi did write the letters he could have confessed and tried to spin it as some sort of sting operation, which he doesn't do at this time. The behavior of Gain and DeAmicas doesn't suggest they would be willing to cover up a mistake Toschi made. If anything it seems the opposite is true and they would take the hammers and nails to his crucifixion.
In the '90s the FBI released its Zodiac files.
The FBI files mentioning the Toschi, Maupin, and Gain saga are jaw-dropping.
This one from the SAC of Sacramento is a heads up Toschi is being accused of writing a zodiac letter
SAC of san Francisco writes Director FBI saying behavioral science will continue its profile of zodiac just not include the 78 letter in its profile.
So far, its about what you expect, but here is the show stopper.
Original request for psychological profile of person authoring most recent Zodiac Letters has not been accomplished to date since Police chief Charles Gain, San Francisco, California Police Department has announced that Inspector David Tochi had actually written three letters himself to gain publicity for the Zodiac case.
This police cooperation matter is considered closed by the Behavioral Science Unit, Training Division. 2
This one is tough to take in, not only did Toschi write the 78 letter he wrote two more letters?
Did Toschi write Zodiac Hoax letters as early as 1971? Also, how did chief Gain find out that Toschi wrote three letters? the story was covered extensively in the papers where Toschi denied it in tearful interviews with reporters.
If Gain found out that Toschi was guilty why did he not go public? He called Toschi a "disturbed personality" in the papers. That doesn't sound like someone you would try to protect. Was Gain afraid of discrediting the handwriting experts that failed to match Toschi to the letter?
Would the SAC of San Francisco somehow get confused by Charles Gain's statements?
From then on the FBI considered Toschi the letter writer of multiple zodiac letters.
Toschi is being accused by someone that he is the zodiac killer and the SAC of San Francisco casually drops that Toschi hoaxed zodiac letters.
2020 John Douglas best selling author who worked for the FBI from 1970 to 1996 as a special agent and unit chief states on true crime garage as fact that a cop hoaxed Zodiac letters.
In 1999 Lt Bruton a homicide investigator at the SFPD was asked if Dave Toschi hoaxed Zodiac letters. His response is interesting. "The Police Department has never made a statement on [accusations that Toschi faked a Zodiac letter] one way or another," added Bruton. "We will confirm that not all the reported Zodiac letters are authentic."
In 1978 police chief Gain said "There is no evidence connecting Inspector David Toschi to a Zodiac letter sent to the Chronicle earlier this year." in 1979 Gain Told the FBI Toschi sent three letters.
What are the other two Letters?
The 2nd most probable letter for Toschi to have written is the Exorcist Letter. When the Chronicle received the Exorcist letter 1/29/1974 it had been almost 3 years since Zodiac had sent out his last letter the 3/211971 Pines Card. If Toschi's motive was to gain publicity for the case like Gain tells the FBI The Exorcist Letter could of accomplished the same objective that the 78 letter did. Both letters are received after a long gap in Zodiac correspondence. In content, the Exorcist Letter is suspicious as well. Zodiac reviews a movie then quotes the mikado for the 2nd time. He finishes the letter by threatening the newspaper and gives a huge kill score of 37. The letter is even complete with random symbols that are impossible to decode. The Letter reminds me of Adam Sandler filming his 7th romantic comedy in a row. Zodiac doesn't have a new idea, he is just trying to play the hits.
As for the third Toschi forgery, I have no idea, there is a May 2nd, 1978 Zodiac letter that is also not authenticated. But it doesn't feel like a good contender to be from Toschi.
In the 90's DNA, forensic had advanced to the point where it was used as bedrock evidence in the criminal justice system. The San Francisco Police Department conducted testing on most of the Zodiac Letters to try to discover Zodiac's DNA.
The chart has the day the letter was received, where it was sent a description of the letter, zodiac kill score, who has custody of the letter, and comments from the lab.
The letter that says sample obtained is April 24, 1978 "that city pig Toschi" letter. The chart also says the letter is not an authentic Zodiac letter.
If they have obtained a DNA sample from the zodiac letter the logical thing to do would be to try to identify the writer. Sherwood Morrill the document examiner in the movie said this about the 78 letter "the last letter was by the real Zodiac. There is no question in my mind. I've heard they're accusing Toschi of writing them. If Toschi wrote the last one, he's the Zodiac. He wrote them all." Other document examiners like John Shimoda at the US postal service and Robert Prouty state of California disagreed with him. what's the harm in trying to identify the hoaxer in the hope he may know some information to solve the case? or the small chance, Morrill is correct and he is the Zodiac. one reason not to try to identify the hoaxer via a Genealogy is you already know who it is.
The Saga of Allen Keel
Allen Keel is a forensic expert, he is a big deal he testified at the Roger Clemons steroid trial, from 1996 until 1999 he worked at the SFPD crime lab. Lyndon Lafferty the Zodiac researcher was speaking to him along with his investigator Jerry Johnson for his book "The Zodiac KillerCover-up". Keel was a helpful source for Lafferty answering his questions. Lafferty and Johnson had the idea for Keel to compare Toschi DNA to the sample obtained in the 78 Letter. Keel enthusiastically agreed and Johnson had even secured a sample of Toschi DNA.
Then Keel left this message for Johnson and ghosted them
"Mr. Johnson, this is Allen Keel at Forensic Science Associates, uh--I just spoke to you in regard to, uh_to a potential reference sample to Inspector Toschi and, uh__I had forgotten we had already eliminated Mr. Toschi by means of an envelope from his uh, uh, his records in San Francisco that was provided by Lt. Bruton. So, uh, it's not necessary to, uh, drop by the envelope, we already know the answer to that question, and we have in fact, uh_it does?-doesn't? match with the 1978 letter, and he actually admitted writing it. So that's pretty much it, updating and I was just, uh-had not remembered properly what, what we had done in regard to, uh-that issue. So thanks a lot, see you later.
Keel says contradicting things in this short message, first that they eliminated Toschi then, that Toschi admitted to writing it.
Keel also talked to Mike Rodeli for his book "The Hunt for Zodiac: The Inconceivable DoubleLife of a Notorious Serial Killer"
"(Keel) revealed that there were two letters in possession of the department that, in contrast to the "true" Zodiac letters, had abundant saliva and DNA-containing oral epithelial cells on them, that DNA was easily extracted from these two letters, and that the DNA extracted from these two letters matched between them. These two letters were considered forgeries, since the "true" Zodiac verifiable letters had not been licked by the sender." Mike Rodelli also stated "In contrast (to earlier communications), Keel analyzes two other letters, one of which is the 1978 forgery, and finds that this letter and one of the 1974 letters are loaded with saliva and cells. He then easily extracts DNA from both of these letters using the more primitive DNA technology of that time and finds that the DNA matches between those two letters, thus proving that one person sent both."
If you found a DNA match between two Zodiac letters the logical conclusion is you found Zodiac DNA. To think because he found a match between Zodiac letters both letters are forgeries, doesn't make any sense. However, if you knew who wrote the 78 letter because they admitted it, then it makes sense to think the other letter is a forgery as well.
If you look at the Suspected Zodiac Correspondence DNA chart. The only Zodiac Letter from 1974 that was processed for DNA was the Exorcist Letter. Making the Exorcist Letter likely one of the three forgeries that Dave Toschi authored.
Did Riverside Police Department confirm Dave Toschi wrote the exorcist Letter and 78 Letter?
July 2021 the riverside police department homicide cold case unit posted an update in their Cheri jo bates investigation.
They said that they figured out three letters thought to be from Zodiac were hoax letters mailed by a troubled teen who was not Cheri jo bates killer or zodiac.
Also in the update, they say
"additional information was developed regarding a separate set of letters sent to Northern California police agencies. The author claimed to be the "Zodiac Killer" but the author ultimately admitted to sending the letters to keep the investigation going."
They say the author's motive was to "keep the investigation going" that's close to the motive that Charles Gain told the FBI Toschi motive was to "gain publicity for the case". Also if it was just some random citizen who hoaxed these northern California letters, would they give him a virtuous motive? However, if the letter writer was a cop it's more likely that RPD would describe his motive favorably.
Before the chronicle received the April 24th, 1978 letter who was the one police officer in the SFPD who was working the Zodiac murders?
Dave Toschi
The details of Maupin’s story come from his July 29th article in New West Magazine. https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/zodiackillerfr/maupin-s-account-of-toschi-and-the-zodiac-letters-t5572.html
The FBI files on Toschi start are in part 5 they start at page 100 and go to around 150
Joseph, I've read this before but just read it again as someone linked it on Reddit. Brilliant work! I'm thinking it might make a good YouTube video. Would you mind if I cited your post in a video?