On 1967-04-30 the Riverside Press-Enterprise printed an update on the murder of Cheri Josephine Bates. The following day, both the Riverside Police Department and Bates’s father received handwritten letters bearing the message: “Bates had to die. There will be more.”
Police considered the letters a distasteful hoax. At the bottom of each was an indecipherable mark interpreted as either a “2” or a “Z.”
Claimed Zodiac link
Handwriting expert Sherwood Morrill and journalist Paul Avery later stated these letters and the Cheri Jo Bates desk poem matched the handwriting of the Zodiac letters. The asserted connection is disputed.