To Whom It May Concern:

It has come to my attention that Nanette Barto, a forensic document examiner, has submitted a report to prove that Jack W. Tarrance was responsible for authoring the communications attributed to the Zodiac Killer. Before too much time is spent investigating her claims, I thought it important to point out that Ms. Barto has also matched Jack Tarrance’s handwriting to;

- The Black Dahlia communications- The Lipstick Killer writings (Chicago, Ill.)- The Scorpion Letters sent to John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted- The Singapore letters sent to Zodiackiller.com webmaster, Tom Voigt (which she

believes Jack Tarrance sent to Jon Mark Karr, one-time suspect in the Jon Benet Ramsey slaying, for him to mail from out of the country)

- The Jon Benet Ramsey ransom note- The 2001 Amerithrax letters (Ms. Barto also believes Mr. Tarrance weaponized the

anthrax himself)- The I-45 letter sent to Tim Miller of Equusearch

Ms. Barto and her associates, Dennis Kaufman and Harriette Sucher, have written about their theories extensively online. You may find some of their work at the following websites:

www.denniskaufman.websitetoolbox.com

www.nanetteb.websitetoolbox.com

https://sites.google.com/site/findingthezodiackiller/

The latter site links to Ms. Barto’s 3- part PowerPoint presentation in which she attempts to link Mr. Tarrance to all of the above crimes, in addition to a few others, including the Texarkana Phantom Murders, the Oakland Babysitter Murders and the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders.

I believe that you may have also received some information on Jack Tarrance compiled by Ms. Sucher. I think her work reveals itself to be fraught with illogical conclusions, disjointed thinking, and leaps of reasoning, so I will not comment on it further. If you need to learn more about Ms. Sucher and her theories, you can visit her main website, which links to several others:

www.jacktarrance.net

As you are no doubt aware, there is an enormous online interest in the Zodiac case. Many in the online Zodiac “communities” have become increasingly disturbed over Ms. Barto’s

behavior since she became involved with Dennis Kaufman and his attempts to prove that his step-father, Jack Tarrance, was the Zodiac Killer. Ms. Barto has shown a complete disregard for the families of the victims of the Zodiac crimes, as well as the other crimes listed above. In 2010, a group of us came together in order to counter the inaccurate statements put forth by Ms. Barto and Mr. Kaufman. We have compiled a tremendous amount of factual information which disproves nearly every claim put forth by these individuals. If so requested, we would be happy to provide you with a copy of that research.

Enclosed you will find screen shots of some of Ms. Barto’s theories, posted in her own words on both her own and Dennis Kaufman’s website. I’ve also provided you with a copy of the last of the 5 reports that Ms. Barto submitted to the FBI regarding Jack Tarrance’s involvement in the Zodiac, etc. crimes. A report that the FBI deemed “Inconclusive”. In it, you will see where she attempts to tie Mr. Tarrance to the Walsh Scorpion letters, as well as the Black Dahlia and the Tim Miller letters, which she refers to in her report as “BD” and “Finale”, respectively. The report can be found on Ms. Barto’s Photobucket website:

http://s948.photobucket.com/albums/ad327/NanetteB_2009/This%20Is%20It%20Last%20request%20of%20FBI/

In addition, the exemplars used in her evaluation can be found under the albums entitled “Zodiac Exemplars” and “Jack’s Exemplars”.

I am providing my name in the event that you require further clarification of any points raised herein. However, I have witnessed both Ms. Sucher and Ms. Barto repeatedly threaten individuals online when those people disagreed with their opinions. As such, I would appreciate if my personal information could remain confidential.

Sincerely,

Ms. Barto could not initially match Jack Tarrance’s writing to the Zodiac Killer because of a discrepancy in the way in which Mr. Tarrance and the Zodiac formed their lower case letter “a”. Instead of declaring no match, she decided that there was a conspiracy to cover up the fact that Jack Tarrance was the Zodiac. In this post, her username is “Sweetcheeks”.

Ms. Barto prepared a total of 5 reports for the FBI. Here she admits that the FBI examined her findings and deemed them “Inconclusive”.

In these posts, Ms. Barto reports on the reactions of various law enforcement agencies to her findings. She uses the username “habituation” on her own message board.

The following posts illustrate Ms. Barto’s belief that Jack Tarrance penned the Jon Benet Ramsey ransom note. She also makes spurious accusations against Tim Miller of Equusearch, whom she met last year after contacting him to tell him that she believed Jack Tarrance murdered his daughter. Ms. Barto accuses Mr. Miller of profiting from the death of his daughter by remaining quiet about the identity of her killer.

In this post, Ms. Barto implies that Mr. Miller’s political connections influenced his decision to meet to discuss Jack Tarrance. She also reiterates her belief that Mr. Tarrance was responsible for the Amerithrax mailings as seen here and in the next post.

In this post, Ms. Barto links Jack Tarrance to the Black Dahlia, the Donna Lass disappearance, the murder of Tim Miller’s daughter (the blonde from convenience store phone booth reference), Cheri Jo Bates, and the Texarkana Phantom. She also states in this, and the following, post that Jack Tarrance authored the letters to John Walsh (Scorpion Letters), Tom Voigt (Singapore Letters), and Tim Miller (I-45 Letter which she calls, The Finale).

The following post shows Ms. Barto claiming that Jack Tarrance was involved in the Susan Degnan and Jon Benet Ramsey slayings.

According to Ms. Barto, at one point she was given some “unidentified” handwriting to examine. It was this letter, written by Hunter S. Thompson to his friend, Ralph Steadman. Ms. Barto, in the 10/22/10 post, indicates she believes this was written by Jack Tarrance.

The following post sums up quite a few of Ms. Barto’s beliefs and the response of law enforcement to her reports.

The following posts illustrate Ms. Barto attempting to connect Jack Tarrance to a number of unsolved murders dating back to the 1940’s. Many of which she believes she has linked to his handwriting.

The following posts show Ms. Barto making her case for Jack Tarrance as the murderer of Elizabeth Short. She has matched Mr. Tarrance’s handwriting to “Black Dahlia communications” even though the only confirmed letter from the killer contained no written words, only a cut-and-paste message.

This is the “torture” photo mentioned in #7. Mr. Kaufman and Ms. Barto submitted it to LAPD.

When the LAPD did not immediately begin investigating Jack Tarrance for the murder of Elizabeth Short, Ms. Barto posted this:

In the above post, Ms. Barto also reveals a lack of knowledge of FISH, as well as a misinterpretation of the accuracy of handwriting analysis. The 96% accuracy rating comes from CEDAR's work at the University of Buffalo, not FISH. It is unclear where she is getting her 1 in 8,000,000 number because FISH has nowhere near that number of unique contributor samples and is used by the Secret Service to match threatening communications to that known sample database.