The Zodiac Killer's Albany Letter Explained: Who Was Connie Henly?

Netflix's new documentary This is the Zodiac Speaking revisits the mysterious case of the Zodiac killer, who terrorized the Californian coastline in the 1960s and 1970s. Featuring the Seawater family, who intimately knew the police's chief suspect, Arthur Leigh Allen, the film squarely concludes that Allen was indeed the man known as the Zodiac. The murders were made all the more intriguing by the Zodiac's use of letters and ciphers, per ciphermysteries.com, which he sent to the police and the media, teasing and taunting them to discover him.

This is the Zodiac Speaking presents new evidence that implicates Allen, the Seawater children's teacher and family friend. David, Don, and Connie Seawater saw Allen as a father figure who took them on sailing and race trips, some of which they later recognized as corresponding with the sites of Zodiac-related murders and attacks. Connie Seawater was Allen's favorite and remained so until his death in 1992, and she features in one of the intriguing pieces of evidence This Is The Zodiac Speaking unearths - a letter and cipher sent by the Zodiac to the Albany Times Union in August 1973.

The Zodiac Killer's Albany Letter Explained - What It Said

The Killer Stated He Would Be Killing Again

According to zodiacciphers.com, what is known as the Albany letter is believed to have been triggered by an article by Kermit Jaediker that appeared in the New York Daily News on July 22, 1973, entitled "A Code For Murder." The article had all but challenged Zodiac to surface after a period of inactivity, calling him "a screwball with two hobbies, killing, and cryptogram," who "hasn't been heard from for quite a spell now." The murderer's response was swift and chilling: "You were wrong, I am not dead or in the hospital. I am alive and well and I'm going to start killing again. Below is the name and location of my next victim."

Accompanying the letters was a new cryptogram, within which the Zodiac claimed to have hidden the next victim's identity. The FBI cracked the code many years ago, but only released a portion of the message, with much of it redacted. As pointed out by This is the Zodiac Speaking, the 2017 History Channel special The Hunt For The Zodiac Killer already revealed the name as "Connie Henly" via supercomputer. It wasn't until Connie Seawater’s daughter Tammie Lee Prueter saw that documentary that it all came together.

Did The Zodiac Killer Really Send A Letter To Albany, New York?

The Albany Letter Might Have Been A Hoax

Until This Is The Zodiac Speaking there was a body of opinion that the Albany letter and cipher was not sent by the real Zodiac, but by a copycat. That view may have been prompted by the length of time the Zodiac was out of action, and the role Jaediker's article played in flushing out a response, but it was not unusual for the police and media to receive blatantly fake material from hoaxers desperate to get in on the Zodiac action. The threats made in the letter did not take place, whereas previously threatened actions by the killer had been followed through.

Related

New Zodiac Killer Evidence From Netflix's This Is The Zodiac Speaking Explained

This Is The Zodiac Speaking uncovers new and compelling evidence from the family he knew that Arthur Leigh Allen was indeed the mysterious murderer.

Avid Zodiac watchers, such as denofgeek.com, insist that the Albany ciphers are not consistent with the Zodiac's previous cryptograms. They adopt unique characters unused in previous messages. The "real" Zodiac adopted ciphertext squares with bisecting lines and never used a sun cross character, a circle with internal lines, or standalone numbers. These arguments throw doubt on the identity of the Albany letter-writer, but in This Is The Zodiac Speaking the Seawater's evidence to the contrary concerning "Connie Henly," the name given in the letter as the next victim, is powerful.

How The Zodiac Killer's New York Letter Connects To The Seawater Family

Phyllis Seawater's Maiden Name Was Hensley

The final text of the Albany letter is "...you had better hurry because I'm going to kill her August 10th at 5:00 pm when the shifts change." It was only later that the cryptic message containing the name "Connie Henly" and the words, "Albany Medical Center. This is only the beginning," was solved. The inclusion of a precise location appears to contradict the importance the documentary gives to the name. Nevertheless, Tammy Lee Prueter, Connie Seawater's daughter, reveals in This Is The Zodiac Speaking that her grandmother's maiden name was Hensley, so that "Connie Henly" becomes eerily close to the mark.

In previous letters and ciphers, the Zodiac deliberately misspelled words and names ("Paul Averly") so the missing 's' and 'e' in Henly may not be co-incidental. In This Is The Zodiac Speaking, Connie Seawater believes she was marked as the next victim. At that time, she lived in Canandaigua, 300 miles from Albany. Soon after the Albany letter was sent, Arthur Leigh Allen called her home to say he was going to come and "get her" (she thought to rescue her from an abusive marriage), and afterward she received a series of phone calls that featured heavy breathing or were simply hung up.

SOURCES: ciphermysteries.com, zodiacciphers.com, denofgeek.com

After decades of mystery, the Seawater family presents new evidence about the Zodiac Killer, sharing their story and naming the only suspect agreed upon by detectives.