Welcome Df.

trav

How did you latch on to Ross Sullivan if you don’t mind me asking ? and welcome to the forum !

How did you latch on to Ross Sullivan if you don’t mind me asking ? and welcome to the forum !

Thanks, Monarch.

Why Ross Sullivan? The simple answer is Ockham’s razor. Let me explain:

1. I think the most plausible suspect profile for the zodiac killings is an intelligent troubled loner losing his grasp on reality and possibly gradually decending into insanity.

2. I am a lawyer and it always amazes me that people I deal with often come up with complex and conspiratorial theories to explain events and occurances they do not have complete information to explain. It’s quite a natural human tendency to fill in the ‘gaps’ and find confirmatory ‘facts’ no matter how fantastical the story becomes. Z killings are a fertile playing field for this type of thinking because of the sheer apparent randomness of them all combined with a glimpse into the killer’s psyche by means of the letters.

3. The circumstantial evidence for RS is very strong, particularly if you ascribe to the Riverside connection, which I do.

4. He matches the eyewitness descriptions. I have more than a decade of experience as a trial lawyer and have deposed, interviewed and cross examined hundreds of witnesses. Eyewitness identification is notoriously unreliable, which is why I’m not troubled by purpoted discrepancies in wt/ht. If anything, I think the overall theme of a heavyset man approximately 6′ is remarkably consistent with RS. But the strongest piece of evidence for me are the widow peaks, which is a unique identifying characteristic that is considered to be compelling confirmatory evidence when dealing with eyewitness id.

5. The likeness between RS and the Stine sketch is remarkable. Overlooking this connection is, in my respectful opinion, a significant omission in anyone’s theory. I am not suggesting that this evidence on its own would should be a deciding factor, but when combined with the other circumstantial evidence of the case against RS for me it tips the balance strongly in his favour.

6. The handwriting. While questioned document examination isn’t an exact science, it is certainly admissable evidence in court and evidence I have dealt with in a number of commercial cases. I have no real doubt that the whoever wrote the RCC desktop poem is the same person who wrote the various authenticated Z letters. RS is the only plausible suspect if we accept this.

7. RS’ known and speculated timeline is consistent with the ZK timeline. I am particularly intrigued by the gaps in the letters after 71 and the fact that they in all likelihood stopped after 74. The fact that they the murders stopped after 70 (after escalating considerably in timing). For me, the only plausible explanation is RS’ deterirating grasp on reality and eventual legal incapacity.

Ross Sullivan rekindled my interest in this case nearly a year ago and like you I find him extremely compelling. For me the most convincing suspects of the most publicly known ones are Sullivan and Larry Kane.

The biggest hurdle with Sullivan is no known links to the Vallejo area. At face value he seemed a little too disorganized to produce things like the ciphers, but of course mental illness like his is highly variable and unpredictable.

Agreed, there are definitely things that don’t add up with Sullivan, including the lack of any known connection with Vallejo. The ciphers I’m not so sure about as there is evidence that he had some interest and possibly even took a course on the subject in college. The ciphers I think are a little overblown. The only proven cipher he created wasn’t terribly complex and had a number of mistakes. I’m not convinced the other ciphers are actually real. If there is in fact a cipher key it is not logic based but more likely based on some haphazard connection that only makes sense to a mind becoming increasingly detached from reality.

I agree that Kane is also an intriguing suspect. I’m convinced he was responsible for at least the Lake Tahoe and LV killings, which certainly are plausibly connected connected to Z. Definitely circumstantial evidence tying him to at least some of the known Z killings. Physically he doesn’t fit the profile for me, but there are admittedly enough discrepancies in the descruptions to give me pause there as well.

Dfhepb: "4. He matches the eyewitness descriptions. I have more than a decade of experience as a trial lawyer and have deposed, interviewed and cross examined hundreds of witnesses. Eyewitness identification is notoriously unreliable, which is why I’m not troubled by purpoted discrepancies in wt/ht. If anything, I think the overall theme of a heavyset man approximately 6′ is remarkably consistent with RS."

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AK Wilks: Welcome to the forum. I have to take issue with your statement above. Yes, eyewitness descriptions from citizens can be unreliable. But in this case, aside from the SF kids, we have a description from two SF police officers. They do not describe a man of 6 feet. They describe a man of 5’8" tall, which is six inches less than the 6’2" Ross Sullivan.

None of the eyewitness descriptions describe a man who is 6’2" tall and weighing 300 pounds, which are the dimensions of RS. Mageau said 5’8" – 5’9", 160 pounds, which is similar to what Kathleen Johns and the LB teenage girls said. SFPD Officer Fouke said the 250 pound Allen weighed about "100 pounds" more than the Zodiac he saw that night in SF. (Source: Interview of Fouke in the film "His Name Was Arthur Leigh Allen" attached to the DVD of the David Fincher film "Zodiac". Go to the 31 minute mark of the documentary.)

Also, the platinum blonde hair of RS does not match the brown hair described by Mageau or the LB witnesses, or the brown hair perhaps with red tint described on the SF wanted poster. In the opinions of most here, and IMO, the handwriting of RS does not match the writing of the desktop poem or of Zodiac.

If you would like to make one reply here, please do. For further information and more discussion on this topic, go to our Ross Sullivan thread. I hope you enjoy checking out the wide range of research here on different theories and suspects.

What is about Ross that continues to fascinate? I find myself making all kinds of excuses for him. There is something about him that seems to, in very broad and holistic way, fit a kind of hypothetical image of the Zodiac that’s easy on the imagination.

As for his hair colour, well judging from black and white photos is a bit tricky, but it’s clearly lighter than that of his classmates. "Platinum" blonde might be overstating the case, but it is blonde. Judge for yourself, it appears significantly lighter in early photos, but I do think it gets a hair darker in later photos. We don’t know what sort of low lights and highlights his hair had and I think it’s possible he may have had some brown, or reddish lowlights, and in the dark I’ve certainly observed that all hair looks brown except for jet black, white, or true platinum. But it’s an assumption and it undeniably weakens the argument.

Same with the weight, he’s huge, but I have to say in my life I have never seen a person carry their weight so well, it’s just so perfectly proportioned, but that still doesn’t match many of the eyewitness reports.

The thing is about memory and eye witness reports is, people often get the gist right, but the finer details wrong. So if you ask a person to describe someone and they say "he was heavy set" and then you ask "how heavy exactly?" it’s the second part of the question where people trip up. And in a very broad sense Ross fits OK with some of the overarching details, it’s the more specific details that he doesn’t fit.

I think there’s a lot of confirmation bias though.

Perhaps it’s the fact that he has so many people half pointing the finger at him. I mean the only person who actually said he was the Zodiac was his brother and now his other brother is saying that that brother was as crazy as Ross… way to quash rumors. But that’s more than a lot of suspects have going for them. Sure it sounds like a bit of a witch hunt, disgruntled former colleagues, your brothers best friend. Having said that I find these particular individuals unusually credible, in that they are surprisingly articulate about their claims and felt strongly enough to speak out in a big way.

Maybe it’s because he seemed to have an interest in theatre. But that too seems more like wishful thinking than a real basis for accusations. I mean it seems almost like a script when you look at his life, friends with Silliphant Jr. to boot, next we’ll be hearing he dated Catharine Lorre. It’s all a bit strange, but it’s all based on this imagined image of who Z might have been and Ross just happens to be a fertile source of that kind of mystique.