The article below is a rough ‘Copy & Paste’ edit of my page regarding Lawrence Kane. To View the full, unedited original page, go to: http://wp.me/2ZA7s

Lawrence ‘Larry’ Kane is, in my opinion, the man behind the Zodiac persona. Harvey Hines, a former cop, first suspected Kane of being the Zodiac after the disappearance of Donna Lass in Lake Tahoe. Below i have listed my reasons why i believe Lawrence Kane is the Zodiac Killer.

Background

Lawrence Kane was born in Brooklyn, NY on 26th April, 1924.

Kane was in the military and studied basic code in Radio Material School in 1943. Described as a con artist, egotist, and indifferent to women. Close to his mother, depending on her, as she also depended on him. Arrest record dating back to 1946, with convictions for assault & battery, shoplifting, prowling and peeping Tom offences. In 1968 untill 1979, Kane seemed to clean up his act, with no arrests during this period (If he were The Zodiac, this is something you might expect, he wouldn’t want to draw attention to himself for minor offences like theft or prowling that may lead to him being discovered as Zodiac). Incapable of forming adult relationships. In 1962 Kane suffered a serious head injury in a car accident. After recovering from this, Kane’s mental condition was described as ‘serious’ and doctors determined that psychotherapy would have little value. Kane’s mental prognosis in 1965, in terms of rehabilitation, was extremely poor. His medical records for 1965 comments that “His recent involvements shows a definite pattern and indicates he lack’s the ability to control self gratification.

Facts that implicate Kane

•Description of Zodiac in 1969 given by one witness was, Age: 40-45. Approx. Height: 5 ‘ 9. Approx. Weight:165lbs. Hair: Dark Brown, Wavy. Larry Kane in 1969, Age: 45. Height 5 ‘ 9. Weight: 160lbs. Hair: Dark Brown, Wavy.

•Detective Sergeant Ed Rust of the Vallejo PD, who responded to the scene of Zodiac’s Blue Rocks Springs shooting of Mike Mageau and Darlene Ferrin, and subsequently investigated the case, believes that Lawrence Kane was responsible for the shooting and is the Zodiac.

•SFPD Officer Donald Fouke, who saw Zodiac walking down Jackson St after the murder of Paul Stine, was shown a photo of Larry Kane and, after a few seconds, said “I’ve been shown hundreds of photo’s since that night, and this one (Kane’s) is the best likeness”

•Zodiac referred to his victims as ‘The Boy’ & ‘The Girl’, or ‘You’ll find the kids in a brown car’ etc. This suggests that he himself is not a young man, and that he see’s himself as an adult.

• Kane traded his car in the day after The Blue Rocks Springs shooting (Possibly in reaction to finding out that Zodiac and his car had been spotted by a witness (who gave a description) at the phone booth when he was ringing police to brag. Also Mageau had survived the shooting).

• In Zodiac’s ‘My Name Is’ Cipher, an anagram of ‘Name Kane’ can be deciphered.

•Lawrence Kane served active duty for the US Naval reserves in 1943 (WWII). He also attended radio material school in the same year, which would have given him basic knowledge of coded messages.

• Paul Stine, the cab driver murdered by Zodiac, is thought to have picked up his killer somewhere in the vicinity of Mason & Geary Streets (This is based on the price the cabs meter had stopped at when found.) Larry Kane lived at 217 Eddy street, a six-minute walk away from Mason and Geary. You can check the distance by going to Google Maps, Directions, and entering 217 Eddy Street, San Francisco, CA, United States to Mason and Geary Streets, San Francisco, CA, United States.

Auto Accident and the resulting Brain Injury

In 1962, Kane was involved in a vehicle accident that resulted in him sustaining brain injury to his left frontal lobe and received Left Frontal Lobe Cranioplasty. The frontal lobes in the brain control memory, emotion and speech pattern ability, among other things. After Kane recovered physically, his mental condition was described by doctors as ‘serious’, but did not merit commitment to a state hospital (institution) at that time. Doctors also indicated that psychotherapy would have little effect. Three years later, in 65, his prognosis in terms of rehabilitation was extremely poor. Kane was left with facial paralysis on one side of his face (as is evident in the photo of him at the bottom of this page), which suggests that one side of Kane’s body was effected by the Frontal Lobe Brain Injury. Donald Fouke, who saw Zodiac on Jackson St minutes after the Stine murder, said ”He was sort of stumbling along, a sort of lumbering motion with a semi-limp sort of walk”.

We know that those who spoke to Zodiac both over the phone (Police Dispatcher Nancy Slover & Police Officer David Slaight) and in person (Bryan Hartnell), described his voice sounding robotic, speaking in a monotone. Slover said he spoke as though he was reading it, or had rehearsed it. Hartnell described the Zodiac’s voice as having “Not an accent, but a distinctive cadence to it (Cadence: A balanced rhythm or flow, such as poetry. A falling inflection of the voice, as at the end of a sentence. General inflection or modulation of the voice.)

Brain Injury and Frontal Lobe Damage

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. Difficulty in inhibiting emotions, anger, excitement, sadness etc. Occasionally, difficulty in understanding others’ points of view, leading to anger and frustration. Inappropriate aggression & Inappropriate humour.

“Loss of inhibition can cause inappropriate social actions manifested as argumentative, vulgar or euphoric behavior. People with inhibition loss may repeat what they say and show no regard for the consequences of their actions. Damage to the middle of the front lobe may affect the ability to move the eyes and interfere with speech. The ability to carry out complex movements in sequence may also be disrupted (Officer Don Fouke described the man he saw ”Stumbling along, lumbering Gait, a semi-limp walking motion”) The back of the frontal lobe controls voluntary movements. Specialists ranging from physical therapists to psychologists are involved in rehabilitation from frontal lobe injuries. “

Apraxia of Speech disorder (AOS).

Acquired apraxia of speech (AOS) is a treatable neurologic, sensorimotor speech disorder that occurs in adults following Brain Illness or Injury. Treatments are as follows…

Rhythmic-control treatments usually have involved slowing the rate of speech production in speakers (Bryan Hartnell said Zodiac spoke with ”A precise Cadence to his voice, not an accent, very slow and measured”) who already exhibit a reduced production rate. The reduced rate is believed to allow additional time for speakers to reach their intended articulatory targets as well as to process sensorimotor feedback involved in speech production. The use of a rhythmic source may re-establish internal oscillatory mechanisms suspected of being involved in speech production (Dworkin & Abkarian, 1996). Additionally, the use of rate and rhythm controls may serve to focus the speaker’s attention either on increasing the accuracy of speech production or away from speech production In metronomic pacing, the speaker produces speech at the rate of one syllable or movement per beat of a metronome. Typically, the beat has been set at a rate significantly slower than the speaker’s habitual rate of speech.”

Apraxia of Speech, like other Apraxia’s, only affects volition (synonym for willpower), willful or purposeful, movement patterns.

Conceptions of willpower are generally based on the assumption that we have rational control, and that the reduction of this control results in a lack of willpower. We can thus turn our rationality to serve our impulses or wishes, and sometimes have great willpower in pursuing them. For instance, an alcoholic can be very cunning in pursuing his desire to drink, and may display great determination in achieving this goal. Other times, however, he may know that this behavior is destroying his life, and may resolve for the moment to forgo it. Both resolutions may be explained with reference to willpower, depending on how rational his choices are in each case.

The observer’s error is to assume that humans are essentially rational creatures, and that human will always serves that rationality. In fact, we are only partly rational, and often our will serves various motivations aside from reason.

Interesting to note the analogy used that refers to Brain Injury patients commonly showing lack of will power (Again, Kane was diagnosed as ‘Losing the ability to control self gratification), and that one moment a sufferer may show great determination in achieving a drink, and another time realise that it’s destroying his life. The Zodiac seemed to revel in his infamy and loved sending provocative letters, then he wrote to Melvin Belli asking Belli to help him saying ‘Dear Melvin, This is the Zodiac Speaking. The one thing i ask you is this, please help me. I cannot reach out for help because this thing in me won’t let me…’

•Kathleen John, along with her baby, were abducted and driven around deserted streets for hours with her abductor telling her he is going to kill her. Miss Johns jumps from the car when it slows at an intersection. Zodiac made reference in his next letter to a woman and her baby that he’d given a rather interesting ride to. Miss Johns later was shown an 18 picture line up and picked out Larry Kane as her abductor, and in doing so, because of Zodiac’s brag in his letter, identified Kane as The Zodiac.

•In June, 1970, Donna Lass moves from S.F to South Lake Tahoe. Kane also moves from S.F to South Lake Tahoe in June 1970. After Kane moves from S.F, the Zodiac killings stop, and Zodiac disappears. Before Donna moved away from San Francisco, she was employed in the Presidio Heights area as a nurse at Letterman General Hospital, located a few blocks from where Paul Stine was executed by Zodiac. But, Lass worked in this hospital that was a centre for in and out-patients going through long-term physiotherapy treatment, and also rehabilitation. We know for a fact Kane was in therapy and rehab for at least 3 years after his accident. I don’t have any proof yet, but i’m willing to claim now that if Kane’s place of treatment comes back in the FOI request i have pending, i am almost certain that it will show Kane as attending ‘Letterman General Hospital’ for Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation treatment, and that is how Kane was able to know not only that Donna Lass was leaving her job and San Francisco, but also how he knew exactly where it was she was going, and that’s how he was able to follow her down to S. Lake Tahoe!

•Kane takes a job working for Alan Dorfman, selling real estate with his office just down the hall from Donna Lass’s Nurse work station. Employees say Kane and Lass were acquainted. In Sept of 1970, Donna Lass disappears. In March of 1971, the Zodiac resurfaces in South Lake Tahoe. A Postcard was received by the S.F Chronicle, complete with Zodiac trademark crossed circle logo, with phrases ‘Sought Victim 12′ ‘Peek Through The Pines’ ‘Pass Lake Tahoe Areas’ and ‘Around In The Snow’. So, Kane resides in S.F and the Zodiac is active. Kane moves from S.F, and the Zodiac killings also cease. Kane moves to Lake Tahoe. Zodiac also seems to have left S.F and moved to Lake Tahoe where he ‘sought victim 12′.

• Kane again moved in 1971, this time to the La Fonda Apartments on Spring Mountain Road in Las Vegas. On April 24, 1974, Dana Lull was abducted at gunpoint from her vehicle in Red Rock Canyon, Las Vegas, and forced into her abductors vehicle. Dana’s companion, Roy Tophigh, fled from Dana’s vehicle as Dana was being abducted, and escaped
to report the incident. This was Roy’s description of the suspects vehicle.
White Sports Car
Convertible
Black cloth top
Wire Spoke Wheels
Chrome luggage rack on trunk
Missing grill
Old California Licence Plate.
Lawrence Kane’s Vehicle…
White 1966 MG Sport Car.
Convertible
Black Cloth Top
Wire Spoked Wheels
Chrome Luggage rack on the trunk
Missing Grill
Old California Plates (TDY274)
•The description given by Tophigh, matches Lawrence Kane.
According to Alan Dorfman, Kane’s former employer, Kane frequented The Spring Inn Night Club In Las Vegas.
A month after Lull’s abduction, Tophigh reported to police that he had seen her abductor in The Spring
Inn Nightclub, but he had fled before police arrived.

•Dana Lull’s body was discovered in a mine shaft on Mountain Springs Road in San Bernardino County, CA.
Kane lived on Spring Mountain Road in Las Vegas. (Could this be a perverted hint Kane was giving?)
•One day after Zodiac’s first cipher was claimed to be solved, someone sent a letter to the chronicle that contained a ‘Key’ to unlock the cipher, and gave an explanation in detail how it could be done. The FBI then applied this solution (key) to the cipher sent by Zodiac, and found it to be “ substantially accurate”. The letter that contained the key was simply signed, ‘With best wishes, Concerned Citizen’. He signs it ‘Concerned Citizen’, a reference, in my opinion, to Citizen Kane.’

•Zodiac also sent a letter in which he quoted ‘Ko-Ko’, a character from the Gilbert & Sullivan Opera ‘The Mikado’. “As some day it may hapen that a victom must be found. I’ve got a little list. I’ve got a little list, of society offenders who might well be underground who would never be missed who would never be missed.” Ko-Ko was ‘The Lord High Executioner of Titipu – The Highest Rank A Citizen Can Obtain’. This may also explain why Zodiac wore an executioners style hood and costume at Lake Berryessa.

One point of importance that i’d like to address is an assumption made by a certain website forum that Lawrence Kane could not be The Zodiac because he had Brain Damage, and thus could not possibly have been capable of planning the Zodiac crimes nor have the capacity to create the ciphers. This assumption is, in my opinion, based on the stigma attached to the term ‘Brain Damage’. This is incorrect. First of all, Brain Damage is not a specific diagnosis, but rather a general term covering many different possible specific injuries. For example, if i were to say ‘He has broken his foot’, that is a general term for a foot injury, but does not say specifically which of the 26 bones in the foot were broken. The same is with Brain Damage. There are different ares of the brain that affect different parts of the body. For example, Kane damaged the Cerebral Cortex (Frontal Lobes). This would have no impact at all on his intellect, nor would it prohibit him from creating Coded Cipher’s. On the Contrary, according to the Brain Injury Institute official web page ”people who have suffered damage to the Cerebral Cortex, show a tendency to obsess over things that interest them.” As one Neurologist puts it “An injury to the brain, specifically the Frontal Lobe’s, will affect the person’s personality, speech, emotions etc, but won’t have any impact on that person’s intelligence at all. They remain as intelligent after the event as they were prior to it”.

Zodiac may have gloated over the fact he was stopped and let go, but i think this very police stop was the reason Zodiac disappeared from San Francisco. The Zodiac knew that he had been stopped and spoken to, even claiming in the above letter that cops called him over, and that they had obviously seen his face very clearly pretty close up. So if Zodiac decided to stay in the SF area, he would have been aware that at any time and at any place, he could again encounter the Officer that had stopped and spoke to him that night and be recognised as Zodiac. Even something as simple as a traffic stop could bring him down, if it was carried out by the same cop that had seen his face so clearly the night on Jackson St. So i believe Zodiac decided it was far to high a risk to take to stay in SF, even if he had decided to stop killing. It may just be pure coincidence, but Kane moved away from SF a few months after the Paul Stine/police stop incident.

Lawrence Kane, aka Lawrence Cane died on May 20, 2010 at the age of 86 in Nevada. Kane was laid to rest in Northern Nevada’s Veteran Cemetery.

So, can I tell you I know for fact Lawrence Kane was The Zodiac? No. Would I advise readers to dismiss all other suspects based on the above article and my opinions? Certainly not.

Here is a link to an episode of ‘Case Reopened – Zodiac’. Kane is the focus of this clip. http://youtu.be/TMyDhxia8pg

Thanks for reading!

If any reader has any other information regarding Kane, or has any suggestions, questions, feedback or criticism of anything contained on this page, please feel free to contact me via email at WelshChappie@aol.com

This is some pretty solid analysis Welsh…