That particular one has a couple of elements going for it though. The briefcase and the bonds and cheques being the main ones. Still reading

P. 330

Robinson was in San Francisco 3-7 June 68.

Detective Stearns wants to know if he visited the Rosicrucian temple there. Hmmm.

P 339

Cleaner says briefcase was still in office after murders.

350-51 is pretty damning for Scolaro. Not sure why those boys would make up that story. Scolaro apparently paid neighbourhood guys 10$ to make a phone call to Robinson and read a script about how their business partner would go up to 5, but no more. Phone records show two calls made from Scolaro’s home to the cottage on June 24th in the evening, which may very well have been the time of the murder.

He may not have been in on the murder, but he and Robinson seem to have been involved in scamming each other and other people in various ways, most likely for high stakes.

411

In 1973, an abandoned car found in Detroit. Leather luggage tag with Mrs. Robinson’s name on it found in the glove box. Car eventually tracked to Toledo. The guys who claim to have been hired by Scolaro to murder the Robinsons said they took a trip to Toledo to buy guns for the job, if I remember.

The Robinsons expecting to take a private jet trip to Kentucky and Florida when they were murdered.

P 14.

Mr. Roberts (or Roebert)’s phone voice described as low, monotone, with frequent pauses, but also ascribed to an elderly man by the witness.

Scolaro attended Harvard for a year in 1955, three years before TK. He was Army Intelligence from 56 to 59, as morse code interceptor.

P 22

Robinson son’s college room mate reports son told him his father (Robinson) did business with Giacalone (probably Anthony: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Giacalone ).

After what appears to be a thorough investigation of numerous suspects, imo this case will remain unsolved.

The most likely culprits were the ones who confessed to being hired by Mr. Scolaro, who committed suicide.

Has the diamond ring ever been located (Mrs. Robinson’s)?

Since the cabin was locked, whoever did this must have had a key in order to lock the doors when they left. Mr. Scolaro (IIRC had a key) could have copied his and given to the hired hit men.

P 40

One of the Robinson sons used to ride motorcycles with the young man who was killed in the accident (Bliss) a few days before the murders.

Interesting finds. There was a circumstantial case against Scolaro. If you haven’t already, you should go to page 1 of this thread and read it all the way till the present post. The circumstantial evidence against Scolaro is discussed, and arguments pro and con for Scolaro’s guilt are made.

Ultimately I didn’t find the case against Scolaro to be very convincing. His alleged motive, that he wanted to prevent Robison from finding out about his alleged embezzlement, just doesn’t add up.

After the Robison family murders, the prosecutor looked into Scolaro for possible evidence of embezzlement. The prosecutor did not bring charges, citing a lack of hard evidence. Even if there were evidence of embezzlement, Scolaro was a honorably discharged Army veteran, who had attended Harvard and was the white upper-middle-class businessman with no prior criminal record.

If he ever faced charges of embezzlement, he would know that a person of his type background, who could afford a good lawyer, even if found or pled guilty, would likely receive a punishment of probation.

It just doesn’t make any sense to commit six acts of first-degree murder, each carrying a mandatory life sentence with no parole, to cover up a few thousand dollars related to a possible embezzlement charge, which would usually be handled by a plea bargain down to a misdemeanor, with a punishment of probation or maybe just a fine.

There is also the fact that police never could place him at the cabin on the night of the murders. He was seen by Witnesses in Detroit at 11:15 p.m., and gunshots were heard at the cabin at 8:30 – 9:00 p.m. . The cabin was 300 miles away from the Detroit area. He did not have a pilot’s license and they could find no plane travel between those locations at that time. So they were left trying to explain how you could travel 300 miles by car in 3 hours.

That’s when they brought up the idea about maybe he hired a hitman. But Mr Robison was killed with the first shot fired, which was fired from outside the cabin through a glass window and it hit and killed Mr. Robison. At that point Scolaro or any hitman would have left the scene, and the death would likely have been written off as a stray bullet from a hunter..

Instead, the killer enters the cabin and kills Mrs. Robison and their four children. If you study the history of Mafia and organized crime murders, you will find that 99.9% of the time, effort is made to avoid killing the wife or children of the target.

Little Susan Robison, 7 years old, was fatally struck in the head by a bullet. But as she laid dead or was in the process of dying, the killer took a hammer and beat her face severely. That matched what happened in another home invasion attack while the entire family was home, also in a residence on Lake Michigan, also where the father was involved in a high-tech business. That was the home invasion of Charles Percy home in suburban Chicago on September 18th, 1966. Their college co-ed Valerie Percy was killed and the knife attack and her face was beaten beyond recognition by a killer with a hammer. Like mrs. Robinson and Linda Edwards, Valerie Percy’s killer adjusted her garments to leave her exposed.

None of this fits with a scenario of Scolaro or a hitman being involved. Also the death of the motorcyclist by wire strung across the road doesn’t fit with a Scolaro or hitman scenario, neither does the tipster Zodius sending accurate crime scene information to the newspaper, or the mysterious Mr. Robert calling from San Francisco.

Also not fitting with any Scolaro or hitman scenario is the fact of the Robison ballistics matching the ballistics at Zodiac Lake Herman Road 12/20/68 and possible Zodiac Santa Barbara 6/4/63. Also the Robison murders matching the posing by body stacking seen in Santa Barbara 6/4/63 and the Bricca family home invasion murders off 9 /27 /66. Posing of any kind happens in about 1% of all homicides,.

Based upon information I gave them, police in the Bricca case issued a press release stating that the Zodiac Kiiller was a suspect in those home invasion family murders, which have many matches to the Robison home invasion family murders.

P 49-50 (but also other places in the file)

Intrigued by they man who comes into the Variety Store at Harbor Springs on 24 June to ask for directions to the Robinson cottage.

P 49-50 (but also other places in the file)

Intrigued by they man who comes into the Variety Store at Harbor Springs on 24 June to ask for directions to the Robinson cottage.

Any description of his age, physical characteristics, etc.?

I see in the file there is no real description of the man who asked for directions.

Then there was the suspicious hitchhiker. He was wearing an Army jacket, but no shoulder patch, so probably purchased at a surplus store. He was described as white male, in his 20’s, about 6′, 155 pounds, light hair, cut very short. That is reasonably similar to most Zodiac descriptions.

Wow. That was a harrowing read.

Overall impressions: The most likely explanation is that this was a carefully planned mob hit, carried out with extreme violence, to send a clear message. I think Robinson and Scolaro had been defrauding their clients, and most likely had been involved in handling mob money, probably laundering it through Impresario Magazine, which was a perpetual and substantial money loser, but somehow kept going, and even expanding. At some point, they probably tried to scam the wrong people.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Scolaro saved his skin (however temporarily) by setting up the Robinsons. The exchanges with Roebert or Roberts had been going on for several months. They were dangling a very big deal in front of Robinson. Scolaro definitely helped set up the late June meeting at the cabin, even using deception to do so. Once the whole family was assembled at the isolated cabin, waiting for the imaginary Roebert and his mythical private jet, with all friends and neighbours expecting them to be away for a month, the hitmen moved in.

I don’t buy the Mafia code of honour thing. It is a myth: e.g. https://www.thelocal.it/20140320/child- … ct-is-myth
Business is business.

I think the evidence for stacking of the bodies is ambiguous at best. I think they are just as likely to simply be overlapping. The so-called stacked bodies were found in the hallway, and may very well have been found just where they fell. There are limited ways to fall in a hallway. The three bodies outside the hallway were not stacked.

I can see a scenario in which Zodiac/TK did this, but it is much less likely than a mob hit IMO. The rope attack on the road is certainly suggestive, but it not unique to TK. If this was TK, it would have to be an early and elaborate FC operation. TK would have had to be Mr. Roebert and set up the ambush, or would have had to walk in on the ready made situation.

As for a non-TK Zodiac scenario, I really don’t see one. How to explain Scolaro’s involvement in getting the Robinsons to the cabin for a pick-up by Roebert? How to explain the .22 and the .25 both being used on different victims?

The Zodius stuff is very intriguing, but it isn’t enough to tip the balance. Zodiac may have written that material, but may not have been involved in the crime itself. It wouldn’t be the last time, and maybe not the first, that Zodiac used the papers to take credit for other people’s crimes.

I thought this was ZODIACkillersite.com