Just been reading over a few facts regarding Zodiac and it struck me that, while some use Kane’s Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) to discount him as being the highly organized and meticulous Zodiac Killer, the opposite is actually the case. What am I thinking of specifically? Well, here’s a classic example.
But before I do, here is but a few of the most common symptoms and impairments seen to manifest in those who have badly damaged their Frontal Lobe/s.
"The frontal lobe controls motor skills like hand/eye coordination, conscious thought, emotions, and even your personality. As a result of a brain injury, frontal lobe damage may impair your attention span, motivation, judgment, and organizational capacity. Because your emotions are affected, the symptoms you experience from frontal lobe damage may manifest causing you to become impulsive or assume risky behaviors. On mental state examination a person with frontal lobe damage may show reduced speech, with reduced verbal fluency and impaired expressive language."
Now, with that in mind, I have seen at least one person specifically rule Kane out for the Z crimes reasoning that Kane simply could not have orchestrated, planned and the executed the crimes as seen in the case of Zodiac. Hmmmm. Keep these few impairments specifically in mind when reading the next few sentences after it: ": frontal lobe damage may impair your attention span, motivation, judgment, and organizational capacity
Oct 11, 1969. The time is approx.:10:05pm, the place is Cherry Street, the person making his way down that short road can undoubtedly hear the Police sirens responding and knows San Fran’s Blue Meanies are a matter of yards behind him hot on his wingalker clad heels. Now, Zodiac calls on his sense of judgment to decide that, yes, the Blue Meanies are closing around him on Washington which vastly increases the possibility that if units are responding, they won’t all do so along W’ton St which to the clear and non judgment impaired brain would scream ‘Danger, disappear into Presidio immediately via Cherry entrance, must escape blue meanies at all cost.’
But not Zodiac, no. He has planned this crime and the way it will unfold and has crossed each T and taken time to dot each I. But, it seems in theory when he ran it through his minds eye, he got to Maple with plenty of time to spare before the inept and sluggish first responders did. So, those of us with the capability to do so would instantly switch to ‘Plan B’ and make a B-Line for that entrance on Cherry as fast as the adrenalin filled body would compel us. Does Zodiac exercise good judgement and do what any other person would do facing imminent capture and take evasive action that he has available to him at Cherry? No, his judgement of the severity of his situation and predicament seem almost to be something of which he is oblivious. To turn right at the summit of Cherry instead of crossing to duck into the darkness of the Presidio and the safety it offers in it’s darkened grounds & excessive foliage is, in my opinion anyway, a clear and blatant choice made by a man who’s judgement and decision making abilities are quite severely impaired. Now I will acknowledge that if his ability to realise his predicament and act in response to it was because he was suffering a form of impairment which effected his decision making abilities then there are, obviously, many other possible reasons that could account for that impairment being present other than being caused by Brain Injury. The most obvious one is drink and/or drugs. Fouke did suggest he appeared unsteady on his own feet stating he saw the suspect ‘Stumbling along’ the sidewalk. Could be due to illness and injury, or his use of a drug such as LSD for example.
Did he organize this crime in detail before he embarked on the practicality of it and yet fail to consider the possibility that if he hangs around the cab for half an eternity pre-occupied with removing all evidence of himself and prints that someone may take offence at him blowing the driver brain matter all over the front seats and decide to throw a spanner in Z’s little plan and pick up the phone and dial 911? Again, his seemingly care free and complacent attitude seeming oblivious to the imminent threat of capture as he appeared in no rush to get away from the scene and area seems to show a man of absolute poor decision making capabilities and completely lacking in good judgment. And as for his planning of this crime and his organizational skills well, he can’t even arrive at the correct street to begin with and once he does go one block too far, shows no awareness that he’s now got twice the distance to cover than in his hypothetical perfect little scenario.
He organized himself so well that he organized and planned his way right into the welcoming surprise party of Don’s mobile prowling machine.
Genius and truly crack proof mr Z, I tip my hat. If Zodiac is reading this, can you pick me some lottery numbers please because it seems your one of the luckiest men I’ve read about or heard of.
"So it’s sorta social. Demented and sad, but social, right?" Judd Nelson.
I know it’s been mentioned before but frontal lobe damage also seriously affects a person’s impulse control in a lot of cases and I do agree that the entire Stine scenario may have been quite impulsive.
Is Kane’s TBI reconcilable with everything else we know about Z like creating fairly complex ciphers? I don’t really know the answer to that. Just something to consider, IMHO…
I know it’s been mentioned before but frontal lobe damage also seriously affects a person’s impulse control in a lot of cases and I do agree that the entire Stine scenario may have been quite impulsive.
Is Kane’s TBI reconcilable with everything else we know about Z like creating fairly complex ciphers? I don’t really know the answer to that. Just something to consider, IMHO…
Frontal Lobe Injury/Damage has no impact on a persons intellectual capacity or IQ in the vast majority of Frontal TBI as the frontal lobes are responsible primarily for executive function, a collective term for things such as mood control, controlling movement in sequence, language and speech production, impulse control, short term memory, decision making, organizational ability, judgment and other behavioural and personality regulation. Very very rarely will a Frontal lobe injured TBI patient, according to the Doctors articles I’ve read anyway, effect a persons intellectual capacity or their level of intelligence. I suppose it depends on the severity and the extent of the damaged incurred as to how much of your overall mental facility is disrupted.
"So it’s sorta social. Demented and sad, but social, right?" Judd Nelson.
WC, is there any documentation of what kind of brain injury Larry Kane sustained? You’re probably aware that many historical serial killers have a history of early brain injury.
http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_kill … ck/9b.html
I’ve always viewed Z as being EXTREMELY dominated by his right brain and sometimes a brain injury can force an individual’s brain to compensate for an injury to another part of the brain. Which part of Z’s brain was most dominant? What might have caused that?
Entro, yes I am aware that many who turn out to be Serials have some form of Brain, usually frontal lobe, impairment. As to what kind of Brain injury Kane suffered all I know is the following:
– Sustained the injury when his vehicle slammed head on into an oncoming cement truck.
– Worst damage and injury was sustained to his left frontal lobe
– Received emergency surgery to relieve pressure that had built up on the Brain
– Skull damaged so badly that he received emergency cranioplasty, which in layman’s terms is reconstructive surgery to rebuild part of the skull (often done using metallic plates to replace part of the skull.)
There are, as you know, many many symptoms that are associated with Frontal Brain Trauma and their severity depends on how bad the injury is, as does which symptoms will effect the person suffering damage to the lobes. I think, given Kane’s psychiatric report and prognosis suggests it, we can assume he had a lack of impulse control because he was ‘losing the ability to control self gratification’ which to my amateur eye is another way of saying he’s simply having difficulty controlling his urges.
"So it’s sorta social. Demented and sad, but social, right?" Judd Nelson.
Entro, yes I am aware that many who turn out to be Serials have some form of Brain, usually frontal lobe, impairment. As to what kind of Brain injury Kane suffered all I know is the following:
– Sustained the injury when his vehicle slammed head on into an oncoming cement truck.
– Worst damage and injury was sustained to his left frontal lobe
– Received emergency surgery to relieve pressure that had built up on the Brain
– Skull damaged so badly that he received emergency cranioplasty, which in layman’s terms is reconstructive surgery to rebuild part of the skull (often done using metallic plates to replace part of the skull.)There are, as you know, many many symptoms that are associated with Frontal Brain Trauma and their severity depends on how bad the injury is, as does which symptoms will effect the person suffering damage to the lobes. I think, given Kane’s psychiatric report and prognosis suggests it, we can assume he had a lack of impulse control because he was ‘losing the ability to control self gratification’ which to my amateur eye is another way of saying he’s simply having difficulty controlling his urges.
A left frontal lobe injury fits in nicely with Kane’s apparent right eye droop (or whatever you want to call it), WC, and Z’s apparent right brain dominance because the brain tends to compensate for areas that are damaged. Combine that with the apparent alteration of the Stine composite sketch (possibly from Fouke?) and Kathleen Johns’ observations and you certainly have something to work with there. Can you describe anything further from LK’s 1965 psychological examination "indicating he was loosing control of self gratification"? That would be interesting to see and how they connected it to his brain injury.
I can’t elaborate on his prognosis other than to say the report also stated that his recent behaviour shows a definite alarming pattern and also stated that, despite this warning, there was nothing to warrant them advising he be sectioned to an institution at that time.
"So it’s sorta social. Demented and sad, but social, right?" Judd Nelson.
