The Zodiac Killer

[MayBea]

All the new theories involve some type of "funny business" - wife having an affair with a judge and the judge halting investigation into her husband (Grant), a ex-wife marrying a Zodiac investigator (Van Best), etc., which you would expect after four decades with no solution. I expect the answer to lie somewhere in that open vein of outside thinking even if the authors make glaring errors like Shawlgate.

http://blog.sfgate.com/crime/2014/05...l-shocks-cops/

[sdreid]

Does anyone know how much international coverage this case got? I remember it on the national (U.S.) news when it was ongoing but I don't known about other countries. My guess would be that it at least got some coverage in Canada and Mexico. Later, there was a Mexican movie about the Zodiac murders.

[kensei]

Does anyone know how much international coverage this case got? I remember it on the national (U.S.) news when it was ongoing but I don't known about other countries. My guess would be that it at least got some coverage in Canada and Mexico. Later, there was a Mexican movie about the Zodiac murders.

For what it's worth, if memory serves one of the Zodiac copycats committed his crimes in Japan.

[Batman]

Greysmith says the chain of custody of the letters meant the DNA isn't trustworthy but forensics took it from the back of a stamp from what I remember.

The Stine partials have blood in them.

The handwriting is also identifying.

[jason_c]

A great documentary full of great interviews with police, dispatch officers, victims, etc. As you say, smashing!

Note: Surviving victim, Mageau, says he recalls Ferrin say the guy in the other car was named Richard.
The R.O. (Responsible Officer) on the scene was Richard Hoffman, as seen in the film, and it turns out he is also a suspect, at least online. Ferrin was known to date police officers.
http://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMy...hoffman_match/

I really dont think the modern day Mageau should be given much credence as a witness. Not to be impolite about him but he's unfortunately "not quite all there".

On the other hand Bryan Hartnell is one of the most impressive witnesses/victims one could hope for. In fact if Hartnell hadnt been nearly killed I'd have had my suspicions about him. Im sure ripperologists would have convicted him by now had such a witness appeared in the ripper investigation.

[Batman]

I really dont think the modern day Mageau should be given much credence as a witness. Not to be impolite about him but he's unfortunately "not quite all there".

On the other hand Bryan Hartnell is one of the most impressive witnesses/victims one could hope for. In fact if Hartnell hadnt been nearly killed I'd have had my suspicions about him. Im sure ripperologists would have convicted him by now had such a witness appeared in the ripper investigation.

There is a massive amount of evidence that human memory is simply flawed over longer periods of time. It's part of the reason why there are limitations on some types of crimes. So witnesses at this late stage recounting events could be the yellow brick road. I agree, grains of salt are needed.

There are a few schools of thought on Zodiac but what it boils down too is this... did Zodiac select people or did Zodiac just cruise places. Greysmith is in the selection crowd. Modern forensics pathology suggests he simply selected his targets based on their geographical location.

Yet with Stine this is not the case. The Zodiac had planned a route and planned an escape. Did he select Stine? I don't know if specifically, but he must have planned where he was going for an escape route, be it a nearby safe house or a car. The latter seems more likely as highway access was nearby.

In some sense I think I believe Stine was misdirection. I think these latter ciphers are meaningless and are not even ciphers. His first cipher was easily decoded by a couple. The latter ciphers IMO are just rubbish as he doesn't have the skill to do them. Its all just more lies.

I go with selection like Greysmith, but the suspect isn't Allen. Allen was likely a Zodiac 'groupie' of which there where many. I think he got into the case alot because he was investigated for being near a crime scene on the day of a murder. Another suspect Richard Joseph Gaikowski (GYKE) is a much better candicate than Allen but I suspect isn't the Zodiac either.

Mageau was with a married woman. She was murdered in the car with him. That probably compounded a lot. I mean wouldn't you think the husband probably did it? Well he likely didn't, but Mageau thought someone probably knew them because he dyed his hair and split from the hospital, even with pins still in him. Investigators have commented on him not telling the whole truth. I think he realized that he was a dating someone he shouldn't have been with. Probably realized she was being targetted by someone who she was afraid off.... which is evidence for her being stalked.

What seems more likely is that Zodiac knew the women, if even only be stalking. That when he discovered they where dating, he was furious that they had done this and so he continued stalking them and tried to kill them on a date.

I think he killed Stine to make investigators believe he was just randomly selecting people. His messages say the same, yet after Stine regardless of his claims, no other murder was attributed to the Zodiac.

[MayBea]

I really dont think the modern day Mageau should be given much credence as a witness. Not to be impolite about him but he's unfortunately "not quite all there".

I know he was homeless and psychologically impaired but he wasn't shot through the head but the tongue.

I don't know why he waited until the documentary for the 2008 DVD release of Zodiac (2007) to say the name was Richard. He had already IDed Allen in 1991. Hoffman's name did come up in 2007.

http://zodiackiller.fr.yuku.com/topi...2#.VOjVPc90yM8

I tried to rule out Hoffman as the caller who claimed responsibility which I thought would be easy since he went to the hospital with the ambulance. But Darlene was attended by a doctor and pronounced dead at 12:38. If it took all of 3 minutes to bring her in and find her dead, then he had time to get in another vehicle and get to the phone booth which was 5 minutes away (2 miles). The other officers didn't arrive at the hospital until they had gone to the phone booth and back to Blue Rock Springs.

http://www.zodiackiller.com/DFR6.html

[jason_c]

I know he was homeless and psychologically impaired but he wasn't shot through the head but the tongue.

I don't know why he waited until the documentary for the 2008 DVD release of Zodiac (2007) to say the name was Richard. He had already IDed Allen in 1991. Hoffman's name did come up in 2007.

http://zodiackiller.fr.yuku.com/topi...2#.VOjVPc90yM8

I tried to rule out Hoffman as the caller who claimed responsibility which I thought would be easy since he went to the hospital with the ambulance. But Darlene was attended by a doctor and pronounced dead at 12:38. If it took all of 3 minutes to bring her in and find her dead, then he had time to get in another vehicle and get to the phone booth which was 5 minutes away (2 miles). The other officers didn't arrive at the hospital until they had gone to the phone booth and back to Blue Rock Springs.

http://www.zodiackiller.com/DFR6.html

Scroll forward to 30.05. Mageau makes some sense with his comments during the interview, in other places he is rambling, and this is the cleaned up edited version. It's hard not to feel sorry for him. But trusting what he says now(compared to what he said at the time) is likely to send you up the wrong track.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI0jnsbZwys

[jason_c]

There is a massive amount of evidence that human memory is simply flawed over longer periods of time. It's part of the reason why there are limitations on some types of crimes. So witnesses at this late stage recounting events could be the yellow brick road. I agree, grains of salt are needed.

There are a few schools of thought on Zodiac but what it boils down too is this... did Zodiac select people or did Zodiac just cruise places. Greysmith is in the selection crowd. Modern forensics pathology suggests he simply selected his targets based on their geographical location.

Yet with Stine this is not the case. The Zodiac had planned a route and planned an escape. Did he select Stine? I don't know if specifically, but he must have planned where he was going for an escape route, be it a nearby safe house or a car. The latter seems more likely as highway access was nearby.

In some sense I think I believe Stine was misdirection. I think these latter ciphers are meaningless and are not even ciphers. His first cipher was easily decoded by a couple. The latter ciphers IMO are just rubbish as he doesn't have the skill to do them. Its all just more lies.

I go with selection like Greysmith, but the suspect isn't Allen. Allen was likely a Zodiac 'groupie' of which there where many. I think he got into the case alot because he was investigated for being near a crime scene on the day of a murder. Another suspect Richard Joseph Gaikowski (GYKE) is a much better candicate than Allen but I suspect isn't the Zodiac either.

Mageau was with a married woman. She was murdered in the car with him. That probably compounded a lot. I mean wouldn't you think the husband probably did it? Well he likely didn't, but Mageau thought someone probably knew them because he dyed his hair and split from the hospital, even with pins still in him. Investigators have commented on him not telling the whole truth. I think he realized that he was a dating someone he shouldn't have been with. Probably realized she was being targetted by someone who she was afraid off.... which is evidence for her being stalked.

What seems more likely is that Zodiac knew the women, if even only be stalking. That when he discovered they where dating, he was furious that they had done this and so he continued stalking them and tried to kill them on a date.

I think he killed Stine to make investigators believe he was just randomly selecting people. His messages say the same, yet after Stine regardless of his claims, no other murder was attributed to the Zodiac.

Some good points. I don't have much to add but did enjoy reading this post.

[Batman]

I liked reading this thread too.

[Ginger]

There's a nice website http://www.zodiackillerciphers.com/ , all about the ciphers, that includes a cleverly-designed webtoy that lets you try various letter combinations without having to resort to pencil and paper.

[Batman]

Yeah there is a few of them and they are really good. The amount of encryption heads out there running the ciphers through computers over the years just tells me that this guy did one cipher based on a simple system you can have learned from a library book. IMO, Zodiac is not and never was a bright person. Probably didn't graduate. However he certainly did enjoy artwork and cartooning etc. This is why I think the latter ciphers are just an artists hand putting together something to distract people. He tells lies.

Greysmith was a cartoonist. 'Recently' when he was interviewed he said that he would not have been surprised if the Zodiac was a cartoonist or some sort of an artist who drew. The Gyke suspect worked at a newspaper company called the ''Good Times'' and did journalism and artwork for them. He later when on to operate a movie theatre.

[MayBea]

There's a nice website http://www.zodiackillerciphers.com/ , all about the ciphers, that includes a cleverly-designed webtoy that lets you try various letter combinations without having to resort to pencil and paper.

I spent many hours with that web toy and a few more last night.

There is also this Word Search Gadget where you can search for scrambled words in the un-deciphered code. It's purpose is to show that you can find almost anything, not just E V Best Junior. But I do think the author of the Van Best book was on the right track and Zodiac may have his name scrambled somewhere in there because the code seems to be indecipherable and I found the word Diablo and others related to the case.http://zodiackillerciphers.com/word-...t-earlvanbest/

[MayBea]

Scroll forward to 30.05. Mageau makes some sense with his comments during the interview, in other places he is rambling, and this is the cleaned up edited version. It's hard not to feel sorry for him. But trusting what he says now(compared to what he said at the time) is likely to send you up the wrong track.

You're probably right, jason. Mageau thought the shooter was 26-30 but the police who saw the Stine suspect said he was 35-45 years old. The other Stine witnesses who definitely saw the Zodiac said he was 35-40.

I think people look younger, if anything, in the dark. He also walked in a 'lumbering' or perhaps laboring fashion and used old-fashioned words like "fiddle and fart". So I think we're looking at an older UNSUB. Same for the Ripper. Middle Age Crazy to the extreme.

[Defective Detective]

I'm just now starting to study the Zodiac Killer in any kind of detail (I'm perhaps three-quarters of the way through Greysmith's book, which is apparently good despite Leigh Allen not being a plausible suspect).

My thoughts on the ciphers:

1. The fact that the first cipher was legitimate doesn't necessarily mean that any of the subsequent ones are. Is it not possible that the Zodiac devised the first cipher as a red herring, to absorb people and divert attention away from more productive avenues of inquiry, and then sent out meaningless ciphers later to keep the ruse going?

For the record, I understand that an FBI pattern analysis suggests there's something there and that they believe the cipher is meant to be read by rearranging the lines somehow. My suggestion though is that this can be faked - the symbols arranged to imply a pattern without it meaning anything.

2. That said, the 308 cipher does definitively demonstrate that the Zodiac was familiar with cryptography. Now , I don't understand anything about cryptography. To my mind, cryptography equals math, and math equals an obscure, arcanarcane subject which my prehensile brain cannot fathom.

That said, doesn't it sort of suggest that our boy had maybe a professional acquaintance with this dark art? I've always enjoyed the story of the cracking of the Enigma code (<33 Cryptonomicon, even if I don't understand half of it), and I was thinking about it in relation to the Vietnam War. Was cryptography employed to any great extent in that conflict? And were there maybe any angry, embittered Army cryptographers living in Southern California with an axe to grind against American society?

Alternatively, where else would someone have learned cryptography in the 1960s? Today it's more understandable that someone in the general public would have that kind of knowledge, given the prevalence of encrypted computer files, though it's still quite rare. I'm having a Hell of a time trying to pigeonhole the sort of person who'd have that knowledge in 1969. Would it be a traceable skill - I.e. one which a suspect would have to register in a class to learn, and whowhose name is on a school registry somewhere?