The biography of Joseph Bates says he worked at Lockheed in the early 1960s.
Lockheed has a few big red-letter possible links. Understanding again, Zodiac could have worked anywhere.
https://www.aia-aerospace.org/wp-conten … R-BOOK.pdf
The first is that Lockheed was the prime contractor for the Polaris missile. That was the Navy’s first submarine-based nuclear missile. Work started in 1958. Mare Island Ship Yard built nuclear submarines.
Lockheed had a satellite division, located in Sunnyvale in the early 1960s.
Lockheed had a missile called the Agena which was paired with a Convair Atlas missile to create the Atlas-Agena multistage rocket.
Lockheed created an Agena "target vehicle" for NASA’s Gemini program. The last Gemini mission was what was going on at Cape Canaveral in October and November 1966. The Agena target vehicle was "mated" onto the Atlas missile on Oct. 23, 1966, the day after the Sims Family murders in Tallahassee. Remember that there is a report of a weird confession call in Brevard Co. in the aftermath.
http://www.astronautix.com/g/gemini12.html
1966 October 23 – . LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas SLV-3 Agena D.
Gemini Agena target vehicle 5001 was mated to target launch vehicle 5307 on complex 14. – . Nation: USA. Flight: Gemini 12. Spacecraft: Gemini. Joint Flight Acceptance Composite Test was completed October 28, Simultaneous Launch Demonstration on November 1..
Systems testing on Gemini 12 started from the end of September until a few days after.
Obviously Lockheed had a lot of military projects, especially aircraft.
I’ve mentioned Convair with regard to this research. They were a division of General Dynamics focused on aerospace. Convair was based in San Diego. They had a manufacturing plant in Pomona in the LA area in the 1960s, and one at the airport in San Diego. The most notable of their many notable accomplishments was helping design and manufacture the Atlas series of missiles/rockets. Those were the workhorses of the NASA space program in the 1960s.
https://sandiegoairandspace.org/exhibit … ne-exhibit
Zodiac might not have worked at Convair (or any aerospace company that we’ve talked about, for that matter). But if he did, then there’s a definite possibility he might have come into contact with Convair.
1) Convair have clear links to NOLC. A list of some missiles tested at NOLC:
Talos, Terrier, Tartar, Typhoon, Sidewinder, Sparrow, Bullpup, Shrike, and Polaris
Convair manufactured the Terrier and the Tartar.
http://www.norco.ca.us/civicax/filebank … obID=23474
2) The missile being tested at Vandenberg AFB on the day of the Domingos-Edwards murders? An Atlas E, manufactured by Convair.
http://www.astronautix.com/a/atlas.html
1963 June 4 – . 20:12 GMT – . Launch Site: Vandenberg. Launch Complex: Vandenberg OSTF1. LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas E.
Research and development launch – . Nation: USA. Agency: USAF AFSC. Apogee: 1,600 km (900 mi).
3) Was Convair associated with STL/TRW? Yes. They worked together on the design the Atlas missiles. Convair manufactured them.
https://www.aia-aerospace.org/wp-conten … R-BOOK.pdf
The Collier Trophy ·was presented by President Eisenhower to the team responsible for development, testing, production and operational introduction of the Atlas ICBM: the Air Force, Convair, a Division of General Dynamics Corporation, and Space Technology Laboratories …
4) Was Convair connected to the Surveyor lunar lander missions? Definitely. Surveyor 1, a Hughes spacecraft, was launched on an Atlas-Centaur rocket. .
https://www.honeysucklecreek.net/other_ … 6_1966.pdf
5) The Convair manufacturing plant at or near the San Diego’s airport, where they made the Atlas missiles, was about 4 miles from the beach where the Swindles were attacked.
6) I am not yet aware of any missile/computer/satellite/etc. links from Convair to the Bay Area, Mare Island, Skaggs Island.
By fire?
I’m not a big conspiracy guy. But NASA had a series of space flight issues in 1966 and 1967, ending at the fatal Apollo 1 fire during testing in Jan. 1967. There was also a problem when a spacecraft in the Gemini 8 mission went into a spin or roll, or something.
Armstrong used the Gemini’s orbital attitude and maneuvering system, or OAMS, thrusters to stop the tumbling. However, the roll immediately began again, and Gemini VIII was out of range of ground communications.
As Armstrong worked to regain control of the spacecraft, he noticed that the OAMS propellant was below 30 percent, an indicator that a Gemini spacecraft thruster might be the problem. Scott cycled the Agena switches off and on. Nothing helped.
Although it was not confirmed until later, a yaw OAMS thruster was firing erratically, later believed to be due to a short circuit in the wiring.
The contractor on the OAMS system was Rocketdyne, a branch of North American Aviation, located in Canoga Park, Calif.
http://www.ccas.us/CCAS_NASA_PressKits/ … ss_Kit.pdf
The Apollo 1 fire is thought to have been caused in part by wiring issues. The prime contractor for the capsule was North American Aviation. NAA was criticized by Congress for its performance.
In January 1967 a launch pad fire killed three Apollo astronauts. The subsequent investigations subjected the company to severe criticism of its technical and managerial competence and motivated it to proceed with a merger that had been discussed some years earlier. In March 1967, North American merged with Rockwell Standard Corporation, becoming North American Rockwell (NAR). With the merger, the company could take advantage of Rockwell’s other areas of business and expertise.
Make of that what you will. It’s a longshot at best that it was anything more than a malfunction. But …..
Greaaaat.
The Apollo 13 mission was caused by an explosion in the oxygen tank. Who made the oxygen tank?
https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/l … 13acc.html
The oxygen tanks were highly insulated spherical tanks which held a "slush" of liquid oxygen with a fill line and heater running down the center. The no. 2 oxygen tank used in Apollo 13 (North American Rockwell; serial number 10024X-TA0008) had originally been installed in Apollo 10. It was removed from Apollo 10 for modification and during the extraction was dropped 2 inches, slightly jarring an internal fill line. The tank was replaced with another for Apollo 10, and the exterior inspected. The internal fill line was not known to be damaged, and this tank was later installed in Apollo 13.
A few last notes before I take a break (hopefully)
– Both Bell and Howell and Monsanto produced "technical reports" for NASA in the mid-Sixties.
– Lockheed had a reputation for naming things after celestial objects. That fits Zodiac.
– TRW had an office in Cape Canaveral. Don’t know about the others.
– Lockheed had an Atlanta-area operation in the Sixties, for those open to an Atlanta Child Murders connection/piggybacking.
– Ohio is surprisingly plentiful in aerospace operations. But nothing I found in Cincinnati.
– It’s good to keep in mind that Bell and Howell had another line of work in SoCal: it was the most popular company for movie cameras. Keeping in mind the Zodiac symbol and the film crosshair thing.
At this point, I’m pretty much making the rubble bounce. Suffice it to say these companies, and other ones, were involved in aerospace in Southern California, or with links to it. There are more links, I’m sure, among them, but this is a pretty good survey. Zodiac could have worked for any of them, all of them, other ones of them, or none of them.
The Dumler family murder. Cincinnati, Oct. 23, 1969. Same date as the Sims murders three years later (EDIT: or close). Three dead. Affluent husband. Attractive wife. Her mother. Family members herded into a backroom and killed. Similar in that way to the Boles family murders. Similar to Bricca in location and victim selection. No ties that I can see to military-industrial stuff on first glance. Husband worked for family business in the paper industry .
Hey nick no Nora sorry my first time copying a post. But my question is do you know what kind of “paper business “ the family owned? Thank you
The Dumler family murder. Cincinnati, Oct. 23, 1969. Same date as the Sims murders three years later (EDIT: or close). Three dead. Affluent husband. Attractive wife. Her mother. Family members herded into a backroom and killed. Similar in that way to the Boles family murders. Similar to Bricca in location and victim selection. No ties that I can see to military-industrial stuff on first glance. Husband worked for family business in the paper industry .
Hey nick no Nora sorry my first time copying a post. But my question is do you know what kind of “paper business “ the family owned? Thank you
Actually, it was a sack company. They made sacks. Not paper. My bad.
Nick, no Nora the information you discovered and posted above is excellent. The ties and links between where Cheri Bates father worked, the Naval Ordinance Laboratory, Joyce Walker’s employer Space Technologies Laboratory, Valerie Percy’s father’s company Bell & Howell and Jerry Bricca’s company Monsanto Chemical are incredible. Given the already existing matches and similarities in MO, ballistics, bindings, body posing of the female on top of the male, and other aspects of the murders themselves, to now be able to show the similarities and links among victims and victims fathers places of employment is of much further interest.
I have looked at the Dumler Family Murders, and while there are a few intriguing links and similarities to the High Tech Family and Coed Murders we have examined here, I ultimately tend to lean against including them in this series. Like the Bricca Family Murders ((/27/66), they occur in the Cincinnati, Ohio area. The Sims Family Murders in Florida had happened on October 22, 1966, and the Dumler murders occur on or about October 22, 1969. But Mr Dumler has no links to computers, missiles, satellites or any other high tech industries that we see in most of these other murders. And unlike Boles, Bricca, Sims and Robison, the minor children were left alive.
But there are a few other possible points of interest that lead me to not dismissing the Dunlers entirely. The name of the company Mr Dumler worked for was Chatfield & Woods. Are there any known offenders who killed people because they had wood associated names or worked at woods named companies? Yes, there is one, and he is a suspect in both the Zodiac Murders and the High Tech Family and Coed Murders, Ted Kaczynski.
"In the Unabomber’s case a large factor was his obsession with wood. Wood. Wood was everywhere. It haunted his mind, controlled his actions, wood was his goal and mode of attack. He selected as his enemies people who had wood – associated names, addresses, or businesses."
From "Unabomber: A Desire To Kill", By Robert Graysmith
Acting as the Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski used a criminal signature utilizing nature themes such as water, ice, animals, hills, mountains and in particular TREES and WOOD. The NATURE, TREES and WOOD theme was a major focal point of the FBI investigation, as it was one of the few obvious clues Kaczynski left in his trail of bombings. The consistent references to Water, Trees, Wood and Mountains could have been a way to signal his belief in the primacy of nature over industrial technology, a calling card link to claim credit for his crimes, a mostly subconscious obsession manifesting itself in victim choices and/or done for unknown reasons.
Not only did Mr Dumler work for the company Chatfield & Woods, his house was on Beverly Hills Drive in Mount Lookout.
Kaczynski later targeted certain groups of people – business executives, professors in technological subjects, computer workers. But within these broad groups, he would often select a specific person whose name, street, city or business had a tie to a Nature, Wood or Trees theme, or he would make the references in fake return addresses. It would take several pages to list in detail all of the examples of the Kaczynski Nature, Trees and Wood mania, so I will just mention a few highlights.
Kaczynski as the Unabomber mailed bombs to targets in Salt LAKE City, LAKE FOREST Illinois and Ann ARBOR Michigan. He included a copy of the novel "The ICE Brothers" in a bomb package, the story of which concerns a boat on OCEAN patrol near GREENland. Targeted persons named Patrick FISCHER, James HILL, Percy WOOD and Leroy WOOD BEARson. All of his bombs had parts made of WOOD and/or were concealed in WOOD boxes. Enclosed items within his bomb packages such as parts, sticks or twigs from TREES of Maple WOOD, Red WOOD, Cherry WOOD and Douglas Fir WOOD. Selected victims that lived on streets like FOREST HILL or ASPEN (a type of poplar TREE and a town in Colorado associated with MOUNTAINS). Used return addresses of OAKland California, RAVENSWOOD Street and BERG or BURG three times which is German for MOUNTAIN and castle. There are many other examples with NATURE, WOOD or TREE themes, but one more will make the point rather clearly – a return address of Frederick Benjamin Isaac WOOD, 549 WOOD Street, WOODLAKE California. (FBI profiler John Douglas noted he thought the intended message here was "FBI: WOOD, WOOD, WOOD!").
We still have the fact that Mr Dumler did not work for a High Tech company. But in addition to making sacks, Chatfield & Woods Sack company was noted to be involved in the air cargo business. The Robison business plan involved computerized warehouse near airports to facilitate the air cargo business, and other families in this series had links to aircraft businesses.
And while all of the other family murders had a high tech link, some of the coed murders I have included in this series did not. Cheri Bates, Valerie Percy and Joan Webster had fathers who worked in high tech industries, although we cannot say for sure these were the reasons they were targeted. They may have been targeted because of their attractiveness and appearance. Indeed, some of these coed victims had similar looks, which could tend to show it is possible that appearance was the sole, primary or at least contributing factor as to why they were targeted. And neither Betty Lou Jensen, Cecelia Shepard, Betsy Aardsma or their fathers had any links to High Tech businesses.
Left: Valerie Percy
Right: Cheri Jo Bates
Betsy Aardsma Penn State Student ………………………. Joan Webster Harvard Student
Killed in the Library 11-28-69 ……………………………..Abducted and Killed 11-28-81
Mrs Dumler was exceptionally beautiful and had worked as a model.
The press articles I found state that wad cutter explosive type ammo was used, and the initial statement was that the caliber of weapon used was .38.
What do other people think? Do you think the Dumler family murders can be safely excluded from the list of High Tech family and coed murders? Or would you just put it on the back burner? Or considering all the factors mentioned above do you think it belongs on the list?
MODERATOR
https://www.unsolvedcasebook.com/valeri … -daughter/
QT
Thanks for posting that link, some good info at that site. I will post more on it later. Anybody interested in the Percy case should check it out.
MODERATOR
Found this posted on Tom V’s forum:
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/zodiack … 07#p163107
A 1967 murder in San Bernardino. A car chase. Man and woman shot to death. The male victim was an Airman at Norton AFB. Keep in mind they moved missile people out to that location in the early 1960s when space around LA AFB started getting tight. That included TRW employees.
Not a lot of information. It’s just a little blurb. For all we know, it was solved.
Victims:
Warren Edward Tapper, 22, of Petersburg Pinellas Fla. Airman stationed at Norton AFB.
Linda Lorene Mayo, 25, of Riverside.
If someone wants to head over there and bring over an image of the clipping, it would be appreciated.
Did a little research on Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Livermore is one city over from Pleasanton, the postmark location for a Zodiac letter that went to the Los Angeles Times.
Suffice it to say that LLNL was involved in nuclear technology and the missile program. Also medicine. And lasers. And other things I run into. And they had a huge computer setup. Duh.
NYT 1981 article:
https://www.nytimes.com/1981/01/18/maga … -city.html
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is to nuclear weapons what Yankee Stadium is to baseball: the traditional home of big-league might. Polaris, Poseidon and Minuteman, the power hitters in America’s strategic stockpile, were all conceived on the outskirts of Livermore, Calif., a cowtown-turned-suburb 42 miles east of the Golden Gate Bridge. Indeed, every single nuclear weapon in the United States arsenal has been designed at the Livermore lab or at its older sibling rival in Los Alamos, N.M.
LLNL is where my poi retired from.
LLNL is where my poi retired from.
Well then, you might be in the right thread. 
What can you say about his work there? Have you started a thread?
Doing a little research on Letterman General Hospital at the Presidio, where Donna Lass worked. One interesting thing is that the hospital was undergoing a massive upgrade in the Sixties. They built a new 10-story building that opened in Feb. 1969. They also built a research center that opened in 1973. They had some high tech stuff there. And as I mentioned, aerospace companies were starting to re-purpose their stuff for medical purposes by about 1970. I’m curious what it means to modernize at that point in time.
