Is the Zodiac serial killer back in North Carolina

A person claiming to be the killer of the pregnant soldier found dead in a motel has written an anonymous letter calling the murder a “master piece” and threatening to kill again.

On Friday, sources requesting anonymity told The Fayetteville Observer that a symbol used in the letter is identical to one found written in lipstick on a mirror in the Fairfield Inn room where Spc. Megan Lynn Touma’s body was discovered June 21.

The letter, which was received by the Observer on Wednesday and immediately turned over to the police, was signed with a symbol resembling the one connected with the Zodiac killer, a notorious serial killer in the late 1960s.

Fayetteville police Lt. David Sportsman said police believe the letter to be valuable evidence but that it was written to try to mislead investigators, the media and the community.

“There is absolutely no reason to believe there have been any other killings or that any other killings have occurred related to this so-called confession,” Sportsman said.

In fact, police are not ready to call Touma’s death a homicide. Sportsman declined to confirm whether the symbol, which resembles the cross hairs of a rifle scope, was found in the room.

The letter writer claims to have killed “many times” before in several states and says “there will be many more to come.”

Further, the writer appears to taunt the police, calling them incompetent and saying he watched as investigators worked the scene.

The letter, which appears to have been composed on a typewriter, is dated June 17, four days before Touma’s decomposed body was found in the bathtub of Room 143.

The letter was postmarked June 24, the day before it arrived at the paper, and carried a local postmark. The envelope was smeared and blackened with an unknown substance.

The Observer decided not to make the letter public at the request of the police, who said they felt that its release would hinder the investigation and cause unnecessary panic.

The paper honored the request until Friday’s development connecting the letter to the symbol at the death scene, Executive Editor Brian Tolley said.

“We wanted to be responsible stewards of the information, to weigh our obligation to inform the public with the possibility of the damage we could do,” Tolley said. “In the end, we just wanted to do what we believe was the right thing.”

Once the Observer was able to strengthen the possibility that the letter had a direct connection to the case, the paper informed the police that it felt it had no choice but to print the contents.

Sportsman said he thought the letter should have remained out of the public eye but said the Observer should be commended for not rushing it to print and giving the department more time to investigate and “figure out what’s out there.”

“This is the department’s top priority,” Sportsman said. “We want to solve this thing.”