Alphabet Murders

The Alphabet Killer converted the streets associated with his attacks into messages for the police using simple anagrams. 

The Black Dahlia Avenger popularised this method, and the killer used it to convert West Main Street into ‘am in west’, Conkey Avenue into ’con key’, and Webster Avenue into ‘rest: web’.

The phrase ‘am in west’ refers to the backstory of the Zodiac Killings and identifies the Alphabet Killer as the Zodiac. The phrase refers to Geryon and Erytheia (Red Island) in the Ocean Stream in the far west, not far from the entrance to Hades. Similarly, the area where Carmen disappeared is known as the Bull’s Head District because of the Bull’s Head effigy on one of the buildings.  The killer chose this site to allude to Geryon’s fabled herd of cattle.

The kidnapping and subsequent murder of Wanda Walkowicz is the ‘con key’ because it provided a plethora of critical information for comparison with the Carmen Colon killing. For example, Carmen was ten when she died, while Wanda was eleven. Because the killer makes extensive use of 2:1 relationships, the third victim must be either ten or eleven years old.

Investigators can use this information to reduce the number of potential victims. Identifying the third victim’s school, for example, reduces the number of potential victims from thousands to a mere handful and makes it possible for the police to stop the third attack and catch the killer. These details constitute the strands of the killer’s web.