Ps. I know friends of Allen, Don Chaney and others came forward saying Allen was Zodiac but hear say and wouldn’t stand up in court. The facts stand for themselves.

Not to forget about his Zodiac watch and the dead squirrels at his place..I’d say he could’ve been the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker..please don’t ask me why, just a feeling. Maybe one of his friends was the Z?

QT

WTF indeed?
I think that early on he quite enjoyed the attention, so – perhaps spitefully – acted suspiciously enough to keep LE interested.
Pretty sure he regretted this decision later on……

QT – he had a Zodiac watch, right?

Don’t forget the bloody knives found in his car shortly after the Hartnell/Shepherd knifings. He said he’d used them to kill chickens, iirc.

I’d say he could’ve been the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker..please don’t ask me why, just a feeling. Maybe one of his friends was the Z?

For a long time, I suspected that Allen may have known who Zodiac was, and that one or two of the Santa Rosa killings may have been Allen’s work.

Just my opinion but sketch alone should have ruled out Allen in the first place. That’s like comparing shapes and saying a square looks like a circle.

As an aside why didn’t either Allan or his family sue Graysmith for every dime he ever made?

This is how Allen came to be Suspect No.1 Post 80s era…

Ralph Spinelli is in jail awaiting trail for Armed Robbery and is facing a prison term of 30 years if convicted. Ralph is an aquaintence of Don Cheney. Ralph tells prison official’s that he would like to speak with Detectives from S.F as he has some vital information! SFPD Detectives visit Spinelli and he tell’s them he can give them the name of the man calling himself ‘Zodiac’….. But! Spinelli says he want’s to cut a deal with the State, he give up the name, the State drop charge X, Y & Z etc. Spinelli refuses to tell Detectives the name of the man untill they offer him a deal/’get out of jail free card’.

So, it appears that Spinelli had some sort of a revelation at this time, and seems to have seen the light and wanted to do what was right! All he needed for this spiritual revelation to occur was his Lawyer’s statement "The Prosecution have this, this and that as evidence and when your… I mean, If your, convicted Ralph, the State is asking for a sentence of 30 years without parole". At this point he has his ‘revelation’, or as some may say, his ‘Desperate attempt to do anything to avoid a 30 year term’ and decides to turn informant.

Did he have an alterior motive to point the finger at Allen (or anyone for that matter) while having a conflict of interest as he has a hidden agenda? I’ll let the readers make their minds up without me influancing their opinion. (YES, SPINELLI HAD NOTHING TO LOSE BY FABRICATING THIS LITTLE STORY, USING DON CHENEY AS A WITNESS AS TO THE TRUTH OF HIS CLAIMS, AND COULD POSSIBLY GET A FAR LIGHTER SENTENCE! IT WAS ALL RUBBISH!) Lol.

Agreed and well said WC.

Agreed and well said WC.

Thats what is rather Ironic about Arthur Allen, he was the No.1 suspect for many many years, and even today still the best known of the suspects, and he is the one suspect that you can look at regarding the sorce of the allegation against him and straight away see ‘BullS**t’ attached to every word that flowed from Ralphs mouth regarding Allen and that the story was fabricated by Ralph, who got Don Cheney to confirm every word he speaks is the truth regarding Allen. I would probably do similar if I was in his position. If I was told ‘Your looking at30 years’ I’d write a full confession to being Jack The Ripper if I thought thats what they wanted to hear lol. I mean from Spinelli’s POV, you can stuff your 30 years where the sun don’t shine so decides something along the lines of ‘i’ll point the finger at that man as Zodiac, create a backstory of things Allen had said, things he’d done etc with Don C, and possibly get off this charge and he probably finds it easy to justify by pointing the finger at Allen by recalling what Allen had been convicted and imprisoned for.

I suppose you could say Allen makes a good, and easy, Patsy.

As an aside why didn’t either Allan or his family sue Graysmith for every dime he ever made?

I don’t see why his family would’ve cared. Allen was an embarrassment to them. As for why Allen himself didn’t do anything, my guess is that despite the protests he made on camera and so on, he enjoyed the infamy to the very end.

ALA was not mentioned until Zodiac Unmasked. I don’t see any validity in a lawsuit.

As far as Spinelli, that confession didn’t happen until the early 90’s. ALA was a valid suspect long before that.

And IF Spinelli knew this guy "was" Zodiac back in 1969, but NEVER SAID ANYTHING…he should have gotten MORE jail time…not less!

Most locals new about ALA as a Zodiac suspect I would imagine. Ralph took it and ran with it. Ralph wasn’t in Pelican Bay all that long. I wonder if there was a deal even if ALA didn’t pan out as Zodiac. Conway (VPD) went to interview Ralph while in jail in the Bay Area for further info. Of course Conway thought Zodiac was ALA. Ralph was just playing into that, imo. Those two (Conway and Spinelli) went to high school together…among many others.

Not to mention ALA and Ralph’s altercation long before Zodiac even came to light. 40 years of trying to stick it to Allen!

ALA was not mentioned until Zodiac Unmasked. I don’t see any validity in a lawsuit.

"As far as Spinelli, that confession didn’t happen until the early 90’s. ALA was a valid suspect long before that."

That is why I added the words ‘Post 80’s era’ lol. Before the turn of the final decede of the 20th Century, ALA was a P.O.I yes, as well as 1500+ others. No search warrents had been applied for, let alone issued, prior to the 1991 search of Allen’s trailer. Would the Judge have issued the warrent without Ralph’s ‘evidence’?

You are rite though, Allen was considered a valid suspect a long time before this and I never really could understand why, even before the DNA, prints & handwriting were all compared and came back negative because I just keep seeing allens bright, shiny bald head as being a bit inconsistant with the ‘crew cut’ Zodiac of Pacific Heights, or the ‘light brown curly’ headed man of Blue Rock and Lake B.

So far as we know Arthur was a sexual deviant/child molestor (?) but Zodiac did not commit sexual assault on his victims…