I am specifically speaking about the fact that BEFORE Don Cheney ever went to the cops, someone, and it was not recorded who, had tipped off the cops about ALA having a knife in his car on that day of the LB attack. It could NOT have been Don Cheney, as he was in Los Angeles by then and said that he no longer had any contact with ALA, and certainly it has never been mentioned by either of them that Don Cheney was around on that day to witness that knife. SOMEONE had already contacted the police about ALA and he openly admitted that he was gonna head up to LB that day, but "changed his mind". Which is very, very strange.
Now, even with everything you already know about ALA or the Zodiac, I ask you, how can that be ignored as being very, very suspicious? If that were Richard Gaikowski or some other thin-slice of a suspect, people would proclaim him as Z.
How does this square in the minds of those who are not convinced that ALA was the Zodiac?
For me it is either a hell of a coincidence, of the many piles of coincidences with ALA, or it absolutely a piece of evidence.
I also think it is interesting that ALA denied reading much about Z, thought it was "too morbid", but then later on he is practically eating up the press. He seemed to enjoy the scrutiny, his crocodile tears aside. I just find all of it very curious, and enough reason not to dismiss ALA out of hand.
I believe Arthur Leigh Allen volunteered the information about the knife/knives in his car without prompting.
That’s all well and good, which is what makes ALA interesting as a Suspect, but he seems to have been ruled out every way possible. How do we explain that?
But, if ALA really told people back in 68 that he would go on to kill people, call himself Z, and write letters to the papers, then He, or one of the people he told, would have to be Z. But we know Cheney had good reason to want to see Allen in trouble
There is more than one way to lose your life to a killer
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Ugh Don spelling Victim "Victem" was so Z. And his handwriting – the word "weapon" was so Z like. Perhaps Don did have some ulterior motive to implicate Allen. I still have a lot to read up on him. Always thought it strange he so readily volunteered the info up about his friend he seemed to be so chummy with. Also, why still hang around ALA if he thought he was a psycho killer? Doesn’t make much sense.
P.s. I could easily transition this into a Dick Cheney hunting joke, but I digress. Not the time or the place.
Read, read, read! Allen was accused of molesting Cheney’s daughter.
Yup just came across that info. Thanks for the heads up! Well that’s some motivation to get back at ALA I’d say! Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen someone falsely accused of a crime because the accuser had a deep personal bias/grievence/hatred.
P.s. I could easily tradition this into a Dick Cheney hunting joke, but I digress. Not the time or the place.
But would certainly be neat to read. Lol
Soze
Read, read, read! Allen was accused of molesting Cheney’s daughter.
But, if you do that, you find out that this incident happened years before. It would have been one thing if it happened in the late sixties but from what I have read, and correct me if I am wrong, but Cheney stated that that incident happened in ’62, ”63, somewhere around there. It was a camping trip that ALA took with Cheney’s family and his daughter, who was very small at the time, said something about Allen touching her. Certainly, most fathers would be angry and troubled, and I don’t believe that Cheney had his family around ALA again. But…
If he was really wanting to get back at him, I ask you. Which would have been easier? Getting him into trouble at his job, or his school, or years later, concocting a story that ALA had told him all this stuff? Going to two separate jurisdictions, after he had already left the area, and offer no proof other than his own word? Wouldn’t he have concocted a better story?
That doesn’t make any sense. On the surface, when you hear about the incident, sure, it sounds like the perfect reason for revenge. But that’s a hell of a long time to go and a hell of a long shot to take just to get back at some guy who you could have easily just gone to the cops and said, "yeah, he did this do my daughter, he’s already been thrown out of Valley Springs Elementary for molestation". That would have been a direct method. An easier method. Instead, years later, he concocts this strange story?
But that’s not the point of the thread, if you just ask yourself, how come the cops were already tipped off about this guy? Not, "oh, this guy is weird" or "he’s my husband and he beat me again", but "he had a bloody knife on the front seat of his car on the day of a killing at a location he was already headed to?". And yes, he did volunteer that info later on, when he was questioned by Toschi and all the other detectives at Pinol, I think it was, the refinery he worked at. But he volunteered the information because he believed they already KNEW. He even mentioned he had been questioned by police previously because someone saw a knife in his car that day. The reason the detectives didn’t know was because at the time of the incident, a record wasn’t kept of who had called or where the tip had originated from. This is important, because someone said something about the incident and connecting him to the Z crimes even before Cheney’s story. In other words, its independent corroboration.
Ugh Don spelling Victim "Victem" was so Z. And his handwriting – the word "weapon" was so Z like. Perhaps Don did have some ulterior motive to implicate Allen. I still have a lot to read up on him. Always thought it strange he so readily volunteered the info up about his friend he seemed to be so chummy with. Also, why still hang around ALA if he thought he was a psycho killer? Doesn’t make much sense.
P.s. I could easily transition this into a Dick Cheney hunting joke, but I digress. Not the time or the place.
From all accounts, Don Cheney was an ordinary dude, an engineer, a steady rolling dude. He wasn’t a biker or into drugs or in any sort of trouble with the law. He certainly isn’t Ralph Spinelli, who probably would say his mother was Z to get out of a case.
Nerdy types like Cheney can often be socially awkward, or might not be as reflective as some other people. He might have just considered Allen a blowhard- they knew each other in college, and I know how relationships in your youth can sort of change and you think to yourself, "why the hell have I been hanging out with this person for all this time?" Youth has its own sort of relationship glue that sometimes wears off when people move on and have families. I don’t think most people in that time period would be as cogent as we are today about creepy dudes like Allen. There wasn’t the awareness of molestation as there is today. Today, we would look at EVERYONE with suspicion, but Allen wasn’t a’ creepy guy in a trenchcoat. He warmed to the role over the years, certainly.
There have been a few times in my own life when I have looked back at some of the scumbags I used to call friends and you just aren’t completely aware of another’s character in the early days. Certainly Allen’s own family spoke up for Cheney, and said he was a trustworthy guy, and offered their own misgivings about Allen. And certainly, after the conversation wherein he indicated to Cheney his whole master plan, Cheney moved and never saw him again. It wasn’t like they were hanging out for years picking up chicks together. They were college roommates, friends afterward for a short time, but after that Cheney cut the ties.
That’s all well and good, which is what makes ALA interesting as a Suspect, but he seems to have been ruled out every way possible. How do we explain that?
But, if ALA really told people back in 68 that he would go on to kill people, call himself Z, and write letters to the papers, then He, or one of the people he told, would have to be Z. But we know Cheney had good reason to want to see Allen in trouble
Frankly, I don’t know. My suspicion is that with a partial DNA profile, as I have said before, that until they bring us a matching set of DNA off those letters, that originates from more than one letter, we may not actually have a DNA profile of Z. It could have been someone else who licked those envelopes. If you can’t isolate a common DNA profile from at least two sources in those letters, how can anyone use that DNA profile to eliminate anyone?
The handprint on the cab has always troubled me. Because, at the time, no one thought they were dealing with Z. No one knew and I believe no one would have EVER known he was the killer had he not torn a piece of Paul Stine’s shirt. It was not a typical Z killing, it was nearly its exact opposite. Different city, different victim. If he had never sent those scraps in I doubt anyone even on these forums would be mentioning it as a possible Z killing. It was a relatively common cabbie shooting. Ergo, the crime scene may not have been as closed and careful of a job because of this. Did they eliminate all the people from the scene? Mention has been made of that, but it is still a possible blank spot. One tech absentmindedly putting his hand on the car unconsciously could have been the one thing that threw this case into the prismatic mess it is today. It is possible. In fact, from what we know about the laxity in dealing with many other crime scenes, including LB, it isn’t farfetched at all.
There were so many bs stories concocted I start to get many confused as to what was real and what wasn’t!
In regards to Cheney and his daughter, maybe Cheney did say something to police, but what could they do? No proof of anything and unfortunately, like you mentioned MM–times were different. After what happened to his daughter and hearing Allen’s tales, it wouldn’t surprise my Cheney would do that years later.
It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Allen had mentioned things like "The Most Dangerous Game"…it was a book often used in schools and we have the movie of course. And, it wouldn’t surprise me if Allen liked throwing out little innuendos the he was Zodiac. People are odd like that–even here.
Could be years later, it was Cheney who threw cops a bone. Of course there is Allen’s brief mention in the PD reports. Being a child molester and a bit bizarre…still living with Mom, I could see how more than one person might report about him.
Personally, I never liked Allen as a suspect. Aside of size (only) at LB, I don’t see him fitting the bill. Just my take of course!
“…they may be dealing with one or more ersatz Zodiacs–other psychotics eager to get into the act, or perhaps even other murderers eager to lay their crimes at the real Zodiac’s doorstep.“ L.A. Times, 1969
There were so many bs stories concocted I start to get many confused as to what was real and what wasn’t!
In regards to Cheney and his daughter, maybe Cheney did say something to police, but what could they do? No proof of anything and unfortunately, like you mentioned MM–times were different. After what happened to his daughter and hearing Allen’s tales, it wouldn’t surprise my Cheney would do that years later.
It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Allen had mentioned things like "The Most Dangerous Game"…it was a book often used in schools and we have the movie of course. And, it wouldn’t surprise me if Allen liked throwing out little innuendos the he was Zodiac. People are odd like that–even here.
Could be years later, it was Cheney who threw cops a bone. Of course there is Allen’s brief mention in the PD reports. Being a child molester and a bit bizarre…still living with Mom, I could see how more than one person might report about him.
Personally, I never liked Allen as a suspect. Aside of size (only) at LB, I don’t see him fitting the bill. Just my take of course!
Yeah, one thing I have never been able to reconcile is the absolute absence of any sort of sexual motive (at least in the sense that say, Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer’s crimes were sexual) in the Z killings with ALA’s penchant for children. It seems that he would have been more likely to commit the Santa Rosa murders than he would the Z killings.
But that STILL doesn’t explain why someone turned him in over the knife. While it may be possible that Cheney’s story was a fabrication to get back at ALA for something that happened years before (and which, as I have stated, I find terribly unlikely), it seems very much unlikely that he would have been the one to tell the cops that ALA had a bloody knife in his car on the day of the LB attack. He wasn’t in the area anymore, for one thing, and wasn’t spending any time with Allen anymore. Besides, in the fullness of time, and considering all the other elaborations he has taken with his story, why wouldn’t he just say, yeah, I saw that knife? IF he saw it, he would have said something about that to bolster his own arguments. But, he in fact never mentions it. IF he was simply spinning a web to nail Allen, wouldn’t this have helped his case? Yes, hugely. And he DIDN’T. So that still leaves the person who tipped off the cops as a blank spot.
I remember reading years ago on Tom’s that Allen was turned into police by his neighbor because he got into a fight with him about his dog barking too much. I can’t confirm that to be true, or the reason that he was investigated by Det. Lynch, but that makes sense to me.
OP is getting info fuzzy here. You keep saying that someone called the police about ALA because he had a knife. That is pure imagination.
Fact: AFTER Cheney had informed on Allen and he was interviewed as a Zodiac suspect, Det. Lynch said that he had previously interviewed Allen. He did not remember why or when, and he did not file a report on it, so there is no way to know.
Also Cheney said that it was some other murder that was NOT Zodiac and had nothing to do with Allen that reminded him of what Allen had said about Zodiac years before, instead of the current news reports on Zodiac sparking his memory.
Fact: Allen himself volunteered that he had talked to a police officer. He said that he had knives, plural, in his car, and that he was going to go to Lake B, but changed his mind, and that it wasn’t on the day of the murder. There is no way to corroborate that information, and no one else did corroborate it.
People like the OP and Graysmith like to change that to one knife, and say that he was definitely at the lake on the day of the murder, even though that is not what Allen said and there is no proof that it even happened at all.
I think the most plausible theory is that Allen lied about pretty much everything to make people think he was Zodiac, just to mess with them because he knew that he WASN’T Zodiac and that nothing would implicate him in the crimes. Either that, or he really was the Zodiac and was dumb enough to tell everyone about it and still somehow got away with it.
I remember reading years ago on Tom’s that Allen was turned into police by his neighbor because he got into a fight with him about his dog barking too much. I can’t confirm that to be true, or the reason that he was investigated by Det. Lynch, but that makes sense to me.
OP is getting info fuzzy here. You keep saying that someone called the police about ALA because he had a knife. That is pure imagination.
Fact: AFTER Cheney had informed on Allen and he was interviewed as a Zodiac suspect, Det. Lynch said that he had previously interviewed Allen. He did not remember why or when, and he did not file a report on it, so there is no way to know.
Also Cheney said that it was some other murder that was NOT Zodiac and had nothing to do with Allen that reminded him of what Allen had said about Zodiac years before, instead of the current news reports on Zodiac sparking his memory.
Fact: Allen himself volunteered that he had talked to a police officer. He said that he had knives, plural, in his car, and that he was going to go to Lake B, but changed his mind, and that it wasn’t on the day of the murder. There is no way to corroborate that information, and no one else did corroborate it.
People like the OP and Graysmith like to change that to one knife, and say that he was definitely at the lake on the day of the murder, even though that is not what Allen said and there is no proof that it even happened at all.
I think the most plausible theory is that Allen lied about pretty much everything to make people think he was Zodiac, just to mess with them because he knew that he WASN’T Zodiac and that nothing would implicate him in the crimes. Either that, or he really was the Zodiac and was dumb enough to tell everyone about it and still somehow got away with it.
Well, knives or knife, when he was interviewed at Pinole he didn’t say "my neighbor called the cops on my because of a dog". He said something about the knives that were in his car and that he had told the other Vallejo officer about that. So one can believe from that that someone called because they saw a bloody knife.
Also I never, ever said that he was definitely there on the day of the murder. C’mon, duckk! I said he had intended to go there and then changed his mind. The fact was that he was headed there, that was his original intention, and call me insane, but with the knife and that info it looks, I don’t know, how you say, suspicious. Regardless of whether he was there or not.
I know joedetective in his summation of certainties said that he didn’t believe that ALA committed all the murders but perhaps did the one at LB. Interesting possibility.
Yeah, the neighbor makes a lot of sense. Cheney mentioned that he had met the neighbor and that he had said something about "I know what’s happening over there" or something vaguely threatening to ALA. Wonder what that was about, but wondering is speculation. Of course Cheney has a wealth of stories about fondling paraffin and licking envelopes and I am surprised he didn’t tell a story about ripping the seams out of a hood because ALA had to resew it or something. I definitely believe in his later years Cheney was full of it. I think he just warmed to it and maybe he was even getting a bit senile. That’s why I always try and focus on the stories he told in the beginning that are a matter of record, not any of the interviews he gave later or the one with Tom Voigt, especially.
Anyway, this is not an attempt to "prove" anything about ALA. I think there is a tendency inherent in human nature to land on your guy and stay with him. I haven’t stayed on anyone but working out the kinks in the info makes it all a lot clearer for me. I think making that assumption that ALA had nothing to do with it is as wrong as accepting that he was Z and THEN trying to prove it. Thats backwards. What are some facts? Are they really facts? I don’t think anything in this case with any suspect or any bit of evidence can be taken for granted. Just because ALA is PROBABLY NOT Z BASED ON THE KNOWN PHYSICAL EVIDENCE doesn’t make me want to stop asking questions about him. Certainly I am not the only one on this board who finds is nigh impossible to believe that he didn’t possibly know Z. Of course, later, in the eighties, he did claim to Norman Boudrow (am I spelling that right?) that he was keeping bombs for someone he knew in Atascadero and came right out and said it was the Zodiac.
I mean, that’s a subject in and of itself. I personally, i all my many years of reading true crime, have never stumbled upon another suspect like ALA. I mean, the guy LOVED it. Fool was wearing a Z ring and a Zodiac watch when he died. I cannot find anyone similar in any case who was a suspect who seemed to revel in the suspicions about him. Reminds me of me in junior high when everyone thought i was a satanist and I didn’t dissuade them because it protected me. He must have been getting something out of it, but I just can’t see what that may be.
There is something to be said about embracing the weirdness. ALA certainly did, to some degree.
-glurk
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I don’t believe in monsters.
