A macabre poem was discovered scratched into the underside of a foldable desk in the Riverside City College library, found by a custodian about six months after the murder of Cheri Josephine Bates. The custodian told police the desk had been on the library floor at the time of the murder, though it was in a storage area when found.
Titled “Sick of living/unwilling to die,” the poem contains graphic references to repeated bladed assaults on young women. It was signed with what were assumed to be lower-case initials, “r h.”
Claimed Zodiac link
According to handwriting expert Sherwood Morrill and journalist Paul Avery, the poem’s language and handwriting resembled the Zodiac letters. On 1970-11-16 both stated the desk inscription and the 1967 Bates letters were “unquestionably” written by the same person who later wrote the Zodiac letters. The Riverside Police Department remained unconvinced. The asserted link is disputed and the case remains unsolved.