This is from a timeline for ALA-

1959-1962: Allen, attempting to gain his teaching credential, was hired by Santa Rosa Elementary in Atascadero, Calif.
1961-1962: Allen worked two summers as a psychiatric technician at Atascadero State Hospital in Atascadero, Calif.
1962-1963: Allen taught at Travis Elementary, Travis Air Force Base, Calif. He was eventually fired for having a loaded weapon in his car on school grounds.
1964-1965: Allen was incapacitated with a "severely lacerated leg," allegedly the result of a motorcycle accident.
1966-1968: Allen taught at Valley Springs Elementary in Valley Springs, Calif. His teaching career ended when he was fired for molesting a student.

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

The timeline starts about 3/4 of the way down the page.

Thank you very much for the timeline! It is definitely helpful. I found the reference to Watsonville CA in Graysmith’s Zodiac Unmasked…

Pg. 74

"In 1964, Leigh taught at Watsonville, north of Salinas, and heard a strange story."

Also on pg. 135

"On June 11, 1964, he (Allen) was a non-certified personnel applicant at the Watsonville Police Department."

You can’t trust everything Graysmith writes and Unmasked is less reliable that his first Zodiac book. It’s always good to question! I suppose the question now is where was Allen living when recuperating from his accident.

That is the question indeed, I will definitely dig into this further to see if we can definitively determine Allen’s whereabouts between 1964 and 1965. I do know individuals working for the PVUSD that may help determine if employment records still exist during this time period. Allen’s college friend Norman Boudreau’s mother lived in Monterey, CA (about 25 miles south of Watsonville) and Allen did visit Norman in Monterey on at least one occassion. Allen may have stayed with Boudreau during this time period, at least that is one theory.

Perhaps I am missing the point , but Art Allen was proven not to be the Zodiac, so why the interest in him ? Darlene’s first husband was in that same area as well .

On the the second page of Arthur Allen’s teaching application to the Calaveras Unified School District ( http://www.zodiackiller.com/ALAPF.html ), Allen lists a Jim Fontana of Watsonville City Schools as a reference.

Perhaps I am missing the point , but Art Allen was proven not to be the Zodiac, so why the interest in him ? Darlene’s first husband was in that same area as well .

Point well taken…for me I have been bothered by the gap in ALA’s timeline more than anything and I am interested in any activity in the Santa Cruz County area that could be tied to Z. ALA in my opinion is somehow tied to the case.

Perhaps I am missing the point , but Art Allen was proven not to be the Zodiac, so why the interest in him ? Darlene’s first husband was in that same area as well .

Point well taken…for me I have been bothered by the gap in ALA’s timeline more than anything and I am interested in any activity in the Santa Cruz County area that could be tied to Z. ALA in my opinion is somehow tied to the case.

If, it’s a team playing the dangerous game amidst themselves, then yes ALA could be involved.
If you’re looking at crimes in that general area, read under possible victims & Elaine Davis.
viewtopic.php?f=37&t=101

Please someone correct me if I am wrong in any of my comments below. In thinking about possible Zodiac suspects, I have been struggling with the fact that it seems like we cannot effectively rule anyone out as a suspect due to a lack of physical evidence at the various Z crime scenes. I am not saying I believe ALA was Z, but can he really be ruled out as a suspect based on DNA, handwriting, etc.? Can Allen or anyone be truly exonerated? Just because Allen’s DNA doesn’t match what was extracted from postage stamps/envelopes, that doesn’t prove that he didn’t commit the murders, it simply means that he didn’t leave a trace of DNA on the materials. The problem is that we need physical evidence from one of the actual crime scenes that actually places someone there at the time and as far as I know that doesn’t exist. It also seems to me that handwriting can be fairly easily disguised. I don’t know anything about handwriting analysis, but I have tried handwriting two different documents and if I make a lot of effort to think about how I produce each letter, I can create two documents that look absolutely nothing alike. It just seems to me that this wouldn’t be that difficult to do.

ALA, has been ruled out via prints, writing, ballistics, DNA,etc,every which way you can. Even if the DNA in the Zodiac case is flawed, seems unlikely that Allen could beat the other methods used to rule him out.

im interested in the crimes in that area. maybe you can tell me. my poi was from Pajaro.

ALA, has been ruled out via prints, writing, ballistics, DNA,etc,every which way you can. Even if the DNA in the Zodiac case is flawed, seems unlikely that Allen could beat the other methods used to rule him out.

Thank you, I don’t believe I was aware of the ballistics, I appreciate the reply. It is easy to get caught up in the overwhelming circumstancial evidence against Allen and I often have to pull myself out of the trap… Are there any documents/reports available to the public that officially rule out ALA, I would be very interested in reading those.

ZG 211 I can not direct you to any official reports but I do have this SF Chronicle article that quotes detectives from SFPD saying that Allen was cleared in the case,

Hold down your "CTRL" key and tap + to enlarge the article. When done reading, hold down your "CTRL" and tap zero once to go back to your previous magnification.

I tend to agree. Handwriting analysis, like many of the so-called forensic "sciences," has not been subject to sufficient empirical scrutiny to establish it as anything much more than hocus pocus. Even fingerprint analysis comes up short, since there’s no universal standard for what constitutes sufficient points of comparison to establish a match. I always thought that Allen’s specific history didn’t really fit with the Zodiac victimology, but that’s a fuzzy area as well. And yeah, he was excluded as being the person whose DNA was found under the stamp. That’s suggestive but not definitive…IF there’s other strong circumstantial evidence that appears to tie him to it (which I really don’t think there is). Graysmith seized on Allen as his guy, and he became kind of the default emblem for the whole thing. I know that when I first read the yellow book back in the 80’s, it sure seemed like it was him, and there were no other highly publicized sources out there contradicting it for the general audience. Take that template away and I think Allen doesn’t even register in the top 20. There’s more evidence against my former next door neighbor from the 60’s, and he’s a complete long shot.

Please someone correct me if I am wrong in any of my comments below. In thinking about possible Zodiac suspects, I have been struggling with the fact that it seems like we cannot effectively rule anyone out as a suspect due to a lack of physical evidence at the various Z crime scenes. I am not saying I believe ALA was Z, but can he really be ruled out as a suspect based on DNA, handwriting, etc.? Can Allen or anyone be truly exonerated? Just because Allen’s DNA doesn’t match what was extracted from postage stamps/envelopes, that doesn’t prove that he didn’t commit the murders, it simply means that he didn’t leave a trace of DNA on the materials. The problem is that we need physical evidence from one of the actual crime scenes that actually places someone there at the time and as far as I know that doesn’t exist. It also seems to me that handwriting can be fairly easily disguised. I don’t know anything about handwriting analysis, but I have tried handwriting two different documents and if I make a lot of effort to think about how I produce each letter, I can create two documents that look absolutely nothing alike. It just seems to me that this wouldn’t be that difficult to do.