A guy like the Zodiac, used to modeling airplanes in his rather endless free time, would probably have a hot-glue gun, too.
The Zodiac: prime originator of the "living in mom’s basement" Internet meme.
Bet if this guy is ever named, we’ll find out he was pretty much the biggest loser in the universe. Model airplanes, felt tip murder missives, crude gravel bombs, mail-order guns, army surplus shopping, astrology, occultism, comic books, detective novels, weekend after weekend watching old black and white movies and listening to the Mikado sing death dirges.
If it weren’t for the five dead people, I’d almost say leave this guy forgotten….
JR – I know people like their guns and stuff in ‘Merica, but don’t you think he might have attracted some attention, walking around by the lake with a .45 (possibly) and a bloody great knife hanging at his waist? I tend to think he would.
Re: "would YOU mistake a t-shirt for loops of strand at 20 feet on a bright afternoon?"
Yep.
I’d expect him to be wearing a t-shirt underneath his outer clothing, so yes, I could easily be fooled into thinking I saw one.
Would I be asking myself "Wait, is he carrying a loop of nylon rope around, tied to his waist somehow?"
Nope.
(Are you really 6′ 8" tall btw? I’m impressed.)
Anyway – moot points. Yes, the guy in that hood was a weirdo. A crackpot fruitloop nutcase. Check.
BTW – the Mikado’s a good laugh – ain’t no dirges in it. A bit dated, perhaps, but still amusin’.
@Smithy: not really. People back then were a little less squeamish about guns and knives. You could buy the latter through the mail right up until 1968. Not like today where if you have a gun on your hip, people start hyperventilating and frothing at the mouth out of mindless fear.
The way I see it…it’s near dusk, no one is around, he puts on his knife and gun and walks down carrying his hood. What’s the danger? He already knows no one else is out there with him and his victims. It’s closing on night. He’s many yards from the road. Not like someone can just pop out of thin air.
If I were him, this is when I would feel the most confident and supreme. This is when having a gun and a knife on my belt would be the safest.
He knew what he was doing and he chose his victims carefully. Two people off the main herd in a remote area away from the road at a time when people were either packing up for home or had already left. He knew these things. So a gun and a knife astride his belt to me aren’t difficult to imagine. More so to imagine him undoing his belt to add them, unless knife sheaths and gun holsters just slide right into the waistband. I know my knife sheath MUST go into the belt.
That’s my take anyway.
Very well said jroberson and my take too.
Soze
Very well said jroberson and my take too.
Soze
Thanks.
it helps for me, in understanding this guy, that he and I share certain similar psychological traits, so for the average, normal person it’s a bit more difficult to wrap their head around how and what he was thinking…
Re: Pleated pants
Just struck me again that while pleated pants/slacks do appear in both the girls’ description and BH’s (and Fouke’s later on, for that matter), the general impression I get from the two descriptions is nevertheless very different:
In the girls’ description the nature of the subject’s pants (pleated dress pants) seems to underline the general impression of someone who is neat in appearance. Whereas in BH’s description the nature of the pants (pleated, old fashioned pants) seems rather to underline the general impression of untidiness or shabbiness – the fact that his pants were OLD is the main thing, not that they were dress pants.
Just an observation. If we’re dealing with one and the same man, the pants observed by the girls and BH are presumably also the same (it seems a stretch and a half that he changed pants before the attack, from a pair of neat slacks to an older, shabbier pair), yet these pants clearly did not strike the girls as being neither old nor shabby.
Re: Pleated pants
Just struck me again that while pleated pants/slacks do appear in both the girls’ description and BH’s (and Fouke’s later on, for that matter), the general impression I get from the two descriptions is nevertheless very different:
In the girls’ description the nature of the subject’s pants (pleated dress pants) seems to underline the general impression of someone who is neat in appearance. Whereas in BH’s description the nature of the pants (pleated, old fashioned pants) seems rather to underline the general impression of untidiness or shabbiness – the fact that his pants were OLD is the main thing, not that they were dress pants.
Just an observation. If we’re dealing with one and the same man, the pants observed by the girls and BH are presumably also the same (it seems a stretch and a half that he changed pants before the attack, from a pair of neat slacks to an older, shabbier pair), yet these pants clearly did not strike the girls as being neither old nor shabby.
Add the fact they were both described as pleated and I think it is just how one might describe those type of pants. I doubt the guy the girls saw was actually wearing "dress" pants like you would wear out to a nice dinner. Could simply be how they described slacks.
“…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
Yes, well – we can call the pants whatever we like, that’s not really the point. According to Hartnell the assailant’s pants (or slacks or pantaloons) looked old, and they contributed to his generally sloppy appearance. There’s no hint of this in the girls’ description of the creepy guy. They describe him, quite to the contrary, as looking neat.
What interests me is the contrast between shabby/sloppy and neat – not the exact type of pants he/they might have been wearing.
Yes, well – we can call the pants whatever we like.
Leg sweaters.
… that’s not really the point.
Oops … awww. 
“I don’t know Chief, he’s very smart or very dumb.“
Leg sweaters, eh? I like that. I think I’ll hit the stores tomorrow:
"Excuse me, you don’t happen to have a pair of nice looking, preferably pleated, leg sweaters? Something that would go well with a pair of wingwalkers, perhaps? I’m going to a formal dinner and would like to look as sharp – and deranged – as possible."
Yes, well – we can call the pants whatever we like, that’s not really the point. According to Hartnell the assailant’s pants (or slacks or pantaloons) looked old, and they contributed to his generally sloppy appearance. There’s no hint of this in the girls’ description of the creepy guy. They describe him, quite to the contrary, as looking neat.
What interests me is the contrast between shabby/sloppy and neat – not the exact type of pants he/they might have been wearing.
I didn’t notice "neat".
I read all of the girls stated "nice-looking". To me, that simply means "handsome/cute".
The way in which they describe his dress doesn’t appear to be "neat". They mention dark trousers/pants, a "bunched up sweater in front", possibly a white belt or t-shirt hanging out the back. –JUST like Hartnell. The hair is an exact match too–dark brown, combed.
When one takes into consideration everything else they say, the odds seem astronomical there was more than one guy that day at the lake who looked the same, dressed the same, and acted the same.
“…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
Depends what one chooses to focus on.
Is it an unprecedented, highly irregular event that some creep spends half an hour at the lakeside, engaging in a bit of voyeurism? Hardly.
Is it astronomically unlikely that this event takes place some hours prior to another man – a homicidal maniac wearing a bizarre costume – attacking a young couple at a different location within the same general area (a very popular recreational area)? Not really.
So, if the astronomical label is to be justified there has to be an absolutely compelling similarity between the descriptions of these two men – one which leaves very little room for doubt. Do we have that? No, I don’t think we do. Which is why we keep debating this issue.
I guess I am just shocked when people do not see the similarities. It seems so obvious to me, but I guess it’s all in one’s perception.
If they were two different random creeps, it wouldn’t surprise me a bit, but two random twin creeps (make that THREE) both walking around…no way, imo.
The many similarities far outweigh the one or two that may not jibe…and I still don’t know what those are. 
“…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
And then we have this…again, this individual the Dr. & his son saw was described in the same way.
– Dr. & his son
– The three girls
It would seem he did not want direct face to face contact. He "turned around/looked away".
“…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
I find the sketch so dissimilar that I lean towards it just being a coincidence, but it is extremely bothersome that he seemed to have similar attire to the attacker.
If I had to guess I would say that it’s just a really bad sketch that doesn’t represent him well and that various things (sweat from the hood?) led witnesses to get the description wrong in key ways. No easy answer.
