The Zodiac Killer

[Defective Detective]

Uh. So.

I hate to make a double post in such short order, but...

I just read about the Gareth Penn/Michael O'Hare/Times 17 lunacy, and I realized that that brief sketch I outlined up there - of Zodiac as an ex-military cryptographer - fits Penn to a 'T'.

Not a novel suggestion, I understand, but after an hour and a half of trolling through the various Zodiac forums, I've come away with the zeal of a convert that Penn needs at least to be looked at with the same intensity as guys like Leigh and Gaik. One of the most genuinely bizarre subplots of any serial killer's story I've ever heard of. I am totally going to rip it off for a short story.

[Harry D]

My favourite theory is that the guy who cracked the 408 cipher was actually the Zodiac. This guy.

[Harry D]

I have my doubts about Paul Stine as a Zodiac victim. Prior to this shooting, the Zodiac had only ever targeted young couples in secluded locations. Paul Stine was shot inside his cab in the middle of a public street. Of course, there's always the argument that the killer was becoming bolder, but I'm sure I read that Stine's keys and wallet were missing from the scene of the crime. Makes me wonder if this was just a robbery gone wrong. As for the killer mailing pieces of Stine's bloodstained shirt, if the person writing the letters was a hoaxer with an inside track on the case, there's a possibility it was torn off at the mortuary (and yes I know how Marriott-esque that sounds! ).

[sdreid]

I tend to think Stine was a Zodiac victim but he is the one I'm least sure about.

[Defective Detective]

I have my doubts about Paul Stine as a Zodiac victim. Prior to this shooting, the Zodiac had only ever targeted young couples in secluded locations. Paul Stine was shot inside his cab in the middle of a public street. Of course, there's always the argument that the killer was becoming bolder, but I'm sure I read that Stine's keys and wallet were missing from the scene of the crime. Makes me wonder if this was just a robbery gone wrong. As for the killer mailing pieces of Stine's bloodstained shirt, if the person writing the letters was a hoaxer with an inside track on the case, there's a possibility it was torn off at the mortuary (and yes I know how Marriott-esque that sounds! ).

It's bizarre to me that there's no police report specifying that Stine's shirt was torn at the scene. Isn't that something that you'd think would have been noted before the body was even moved from the cab?

[Defective Detective]

I'd like to get a show of hands on this:

Would it be fair to say that the closest point of comparison to the Zodiac would be David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam? As far as a killer with a relatively similar modus operandi goes.

Now, I've seen some nutty crypto-conspiracist stuff on-line suggesting that both were members of the 4 Pi sect (somehow related to the Process Church - something I'll need to research further). I don't mean to suggest any such direct connection, however interesting - although [SPECULATION]It does seem plausible to me that Berkowitz might have read about the Zodiac Killer and have been inspired indirectly by him[/SPECULATION]. This wouldn't be unheard of among serials: Bundy was inspired by the Ripper to try for a double event; BTK was most probably inspired to write pseudo-occult letters by the Zodiac; etc.

There are of course obvious differences. The Zodiac wasn't as wedded to his MO as the Son of Sam - the Lake Berryessa attack was in broad daylight, with a gun used only indirectly, to get the couple tied up; Paul Stine's murder was very different, sharing only the automobile element; and the Cheri Jo Bates murder, if we attribute it to the Zed, is very different from either the Zodiac's couple-killings or those of Berkowitz.

I also think [SPECULATION]that the Zodiac was a good deal more intelligent than Berkowitz - he seemed to have given much more thought to the actual process of murder, and it's unlikely that he'd be so easily tracked as through a parking ticket.[/SPECULATION].

My view, and if you think I'm wrong then please correct me, is that the two represent organized and disorganized variations of the same type of killer.

- Both predominantly attacked young couples in romantic location

- Both at least seem to have preferred firearms as their weapons of choice

- Both wrote letters to the police, a comparative rarity amongst serial killers

- Both implied, but did not overtly demonstrate (as did, for instance, Richard Ramirez) a familiarity with the occult - I believe the difference between an implied and explicit familiarity is somehow important. My guess is that [SPECULATION]unlike Ramirez's gaudy Satanic schlock or Berkowitz's delusions, the Zodiac actually had a solid working knowledge of the occult.[/SPECULATION]

Now, none of this is new, but I'm quite new to the Zodiac case, and I'm still looking for the best framework to view it in. What I've hit on is to look at him as essentially a more organized, more intelligent David Berkowitz, but I want to be disabused of this notion before it sets in if any of you think it's wrong.

Of course, if the similarities are the result of an underlying Zodiacal influence on the Son of Sam, then it might not speak directly to an underlying pathology.

[RivkahChaya]

DISCLAIMER: all that follows is IMO (excepting the extraneous personal anecdote, which is true, but not proof of anything, other than how paranoid people were during the "Summer of Sam.")

It depends a lot on whether or not you believe Berkowitz's claim of having been commanded by his neighbor's Labrador Retriever. That is, obviously, the dog did not really do this, but do you believe that Berkowitz genuinely thought he did, or do you think that Berkowitz invented this in an attempt to pull an insanity plea out of his ass? (BTW, I've seen a recent interview with him: he converted to Christianity in prison, and is extra-super creepy now when he talks about being forgiven; actually, no matter what he talks about, he's pretty creepy). If Berkowitz was really taking imaginary orders from a dog (the dog really did exist), then he probably is just plain nuts, and that puts a big chasm between him and the Zodiac, who I think was as uncrazy as serial killers get.

Now if "the dog made me do it" was a put on, then yeah, maybe he was copying the Zodiac. I was about 10 or 11 when Berkowitz was committing his crimes, and my parents tried to shelter me from the fact that they were going on practically in our backyard, partly by visiting my grandmother for "The Summer of Sam,"* but I could watch the news as well as anyone, and I do remember people talking about whether or not "the Zodiac" had switched coasts. I had never heard of the Zodiac before, but I could use a library, and I could also ask a friend's parents who or what "Zodiac" was when my parents were not forthcoming. Anyway, there was lots of comparison of Sam to Zodiac in the press, and it more than compared, it actually equated the two. This made Sam all the scarier to adults, I think, because the idea that the Zodiac had been dormant, living among people undetected, and was now active again, was very scary.

Personally, I don't think that the two had much in common. Killing couples isn't terribly specific. I think that both of them were really targeting women, and then also killing the witness, and targeting women is the serial killer's bread and butter. Also, I think possibly women who were with men may have been a trigger for each one, but I don't think that is terribly unusual either. Most SKs who are triggered by that just wait for the women to be alone, rather than taking out the men as well. That may have something to do with the gun as choice of weapon-- total speculation there, though-- it's just hard to strangle someone when another person is standing by.

In sum, I don't think they had much in common psychologically. Superficially, there were some similarities, and people really responded to that initially, when Berkowitz first started killing, and I think that lingers in the public consciousness.


*We had had been living in the Soviet Union for most of the 76-77 school year, and come back to the US just in time for the Summer of Sam. Our house was in Queens, right in Sam's hunting grounds. We were supposed to visit my grandmother, who lived upstate at the time, for a couple of weeks, and then go back home to Queens in plenty of time to settle back in before school started. Instead, we stayed with my grandmother part of June, all of July, and most of August. At the time my parents said it had to do with the people renting our house wanting to stay. My mother didn't tell me until about ten years ago (I'm 48) that they were waiting for an arrest in the Son of Sam case, or until the first day of school forced them to go back.

[Abby Normal]

I'd like to get a show of hands on this:

Would it be fair to say that the closest point of comparison to the Zodiac would be David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam? As far as a killer with a relatively similar modus operandi goes.

Now, I've seen some nutty crypto-conspiracist stuff on-line suggesting that both were members of the 4 Pi sect (somehow related to the Process Church - something I'll need to research further). I don't mean to suggest any such direct connection, however interesting - although [SPECULATION]It does seem plausible to me that Berkowitz might have read about the Zodiac Killer and have been inspired indirectly by him[/SPECULATION]. This wouldn't be unheard of among serials: Bundy was inspired by the Ripper to try for a double event; BTK was most probably inspired to write pseudo-occult letters by the Zodiac; etc.

There are of course obvious differences. The Zodiac wasn't as wedded to his MO as the Son of Sam - the Lake Berryessa attack was in broad daylight, with a gun used only indirectly, to get the couple tied up; Paul Stine's murder was very different, sharing only the automobile element; and the Cheri Jo Bates murder, if we attribute it to the Zed, is very different from either the Zodiac's couple-killings or those of Berkowitz.

I also think [SPECULATION]that the Zodiac was a good deal more intelligent than Berkowitz - he seemed to have given much more thought to the actual process of murder, and it's unlikely that he'd be so easily tracked as through a parking ticket.[/SPECULATION].

My view, and if you think I'm wrong then please correct me, is that the two represent organized and disorganized variations of the same type of killer.

- Both predominantly attacked young couples in romantic location

- Both at least seem to have preferred firearms as their weapons of choice

- Both wrote letters to the police, a comparative rarity amongst serial killers

- Both implied, but did not overtly demonstrate (as did, for instance, Richard Ramirez) a familiarity with the occult - I believe the difference between an implied and explicit familiarity is somehow important. My guess is that [SPECULATION]unlike Ramirez's gaudy Satanic schlock or Berkowitz's delusions, the Zodiac actually had a solid working knowledge of the occult.[/SPECULATION]

Now, none of this is new, but I'm quite new to the Zodiac case, and I'm still looking for the best framework to view it in. What I've hit on is to look at him as essentially a more organized, more intelligent David Berkowitz, but I want to be disabused of this notion before it sets in if any of you think it's wrong.

Of course, if the similarities are the result of an underlying Zodiacal influence on the Son of Sam, then it might not speak directly to an underlying pathology.

Hi DD
I would say yes and also Monster of Florence.
All were thrill kill serial killers with little (if any) sexual motive, who targeted couples and primary weapon was a gun.

[sdreid]

Texarkana Phantom

[Defective Detective]

Texarkana Phantom

This isn't a new observation either - I'm pretty sure it was made before in this thread - but the Lake Berryessa attack is so close to the Phantom killings that I have to think there was some sort of connection.

That's not to say that I think Zodiac was the Phantom - I don't. But it wouldn't surprise me, if his identity were ever uncovered, to find that he'd lived in West Texas or Arkansas as a boy. (The Texarkana Phantom didn't get national headlines on the scale of something like the Black Dahlia in his day, did he?)

I agree with the poster who said that the Zodiac is one of the "least crazy" serial killers to live. There's something almost... postmodern about the way he referenced other criminals, the media, etc. He's not "my suspect" (I don't have one) , but I can see why someone like Richard Gaikowsi is so appealing in some quarters. My guess is that, whoever Z was, he was at least as smart as Ted Bundy, and probably moreso.

[Abby Normal]

Texarkana Phantom

Yes very very similar also.

[sdreid]

That's not to say that I think Zodiac was the Phantom - I don't. But it wouldn't surprise me, if his identity were ever uncovered, to find that he'd lived in West Texas or Arkansas as a boy. (The Texarkana Phantom didn't get national headlines on the scale of something like the Black Dahlia in his day, did he?)

Ralph B. Baumann, 21, confessed to the Phantom murders in Los Angeles in late May of 1946. I wonder what happened to him?

Jeanne Axford French, murdered in L.A. in 1947, had "Tex" written on her body in lipstick as well.

[kensei]

When bringing David Berkowitz into the discussion, just to be thorough I think one must also consider whether his claim of not being a lone killer but a member of a cult that carried out the Son of Sam crimes is true. He was caught as a result of the Stacy Moskowitz murder in which an eyewitness insists that Berkowitz couldn't have been the shooter that he saw commit the crime, and Berkowitz himself claims he was only present as a lookout for that shooting. He also does not use the cult claim to try and make himself out to be innocent- he admits to pulling the trigger a certain number of times and says he belongs in prison. There were multiple eyewitness sketches of the Son of Sam, only a couple of which resemble Berkowitz. The others resemble John Carr, who along with his brother Michael have been implicated as being the other Son of Sam shooters. Maybe Berkowitz seems creepy when he does interviews in light of the knowledge of what he's done and because he is a generally eccentric character, but I saw one in which he was being asked specifically about the Carr brothers (whose father's name was Sam, and that is where the name is alleged to come from). Even though both brothers were deceased by then, his fear of them still seemed palpable as he clenched up and would only answer yes to their guilt with his eyes closed.

I believe Berkowitz's cult claim, whereas the Zodiac was a true loner.

[belinda]

I agree with Stan Texarkana Phantom

[mklhawley]

I agree with the poster who said that the Zodiac is one of the "least crazy" serial killers to live.

Interesting you should say this DD. Both psychopathy and sociopathy are not considered mental illnesses. I definitely see the Zodiac as psychopathic than sociopathic.

Sincerely,

Mike