I had never heard of the Zodiac Killer until Oprah mentioned him this morning, but I know how to solve the case. The police should find the names of every single person who has ever seen The Mikado and test their DNA. Does anyone know if this has already been done and what the result was?

I’m kidding. I do think that is the Platonic ideal of a first post from a new member of a Zodiac message board.

I’ve been following the Z case on and off for decades. I was Bullitt on one of the old ZK.com message boards. I’m ZteveMcQueen on the newest one and here on ZKS. I’m currently reading Mike Rodelli’s The Hunt for Zodiac. Just before that I read John Douglas’s The Crimes That Haunt Us.

I don’t have a favorite suspect. It’s been interesting to see growing attention on CJB as an increasingly likely Z crime. If that extends further back to Domingos-Edwards and beyond, it becomes more and more imperative for the suspect to have a military connection. There’s the PX-only Wingwalker bootprints from the Hartnell-Shephard crime scene, the PX-only Timex watch at the CJB crime scene, and the PX-only lot of .22LR ammo used to kill Domingos-Edwards.

Writing-wise, I like Richard Gaikowski and Ted Kaczynski. Gaikowski is appealing because his spelling disability seems to match up with Zodiac’s – the man is a college-trained, career journalist who cannot spell or spell consistently, even when writing for publication. Likewise, his wit and the wit of Oskar from the old ZK message boards match well with Z’s.

Kaczynski’s writing shows many turns of phrase he shared with Z. TJK had many hobbies, interests and abilities in common with Z, including disguises, bombs, writing letters to the editor, and committing homicide. I’m inclined to think the Z340 is a fool’s errand. By that I mean the reason the world’s best cryptographers haven’t solved it in 50 years is either there’s no plaintext to be found, or the encoding was a ridiculous Rube Goldberg device that can’t reasonably be solved. Unless TJK is Z, in which case it might actually be a groundbreaking encryption technique.

Or it could have all been about weed. There’s Sandy Betts’s suspect with drug connections. David Farraday had threatened to turn someone in for selling weed and that person had threatened him just before LHR. Darlene Ferrin was mixed up with drugs, according to her sisters, and Darlene’s address book had a phone number for Paul Stine’s wife, Claudia, which pulls together every attack except LB.

There are so many ways the story could play out. It’s always an interesting read. Glad to be here, and I enjoy reading everyone’s research and listening to their opinions.