Hi-

The Zodiac case distorts the way we look at crime. The police in 99% of cases don’t solve murders based on handwriting. That is because there are variables involved–did the killer have an accomplice, was he somehow able to alter his handwriting, etc. Who solves a murder case with letters? (Zodiac made references to Gilbert and Sullivan. I remarked as far back as early July 1999, a week or so after developing KQ as a suspect, that the references to "The Mikado" may hint at a partnership in the Z case, a la G&S being partners in the creation of light operas. That was long before I ever saw KQ’s handwriting or knew anything about DNA, so my idea was not in response to anything negative about my evidence. It was just an idea I had and still keep in the back of my mind.)

On the other hand, KQ fits the profile of one of the elite profilers in the world (yes, a few notches above John Douglas; Walter is one of the pioneers who created the field of forensic psychology) and the circumstantial case against KQ is very strong, starting with his ability to be tied to all of the crime scene locations. And you got that right that probably no other suspect can be linked to all of the areas, with the most obscure one being a wealthy neighborhood in SF.

A suspect with a relative who lived like twenty blocks east on Washington at Van Ness is not someone who is necessarily familiar with the intersection of Washington and Maple. But people would have you believe that someone with ties to a neighborhood twenty blocks away from Wash/Maple would be as likely to be familiar with that intersection as someone who lived just down the block from Washington and Maple. That is the logic of the Z case. (Someone who lives in Chelsea in NYC is not by definition familiar with the intimate details of 9th Avenue and 48th Street in Hell’s Kitchen.)

Mike

Well, I can think of a number of reasons someone can be familiar with PH without living there. He has family who live in the neighborhood. He rented a room in the neighborhood. He did work on homes in the area as a tradesman. I can go on all day. On the flip side, just because Qvale lived on Jackson Street, that does not mean he knew anything about the homes on Washington & Maple. I don’t know the names of my neighbors. Qvale lives a similarly busy life as I do. He may not have been home that much and may not have interacted with his neighbors. I know nothing about mine.

Hi-

Well, there is a smoking gun in the case against KQ but it is a smoking behavioral gun that a profiler can appreciate but not many amateurs can.

There was only one Zodiac killer. He exhibited some unique, signature behaviors. When you find the person who exhibited all of Z’s unique behaviors, you have found Z, right?

KQ is the only suspect I know of who can be proven to have done an unusual thing in order to receive public attention on the front pages of two Bay Area newspapers over twenty years before there was a Zodiac killer.

He can be shown to have written a strange letter to the editor of the Chronicle shortly before Z wrote his first letters in 1969.

He wrote to me on Monarch sized paper. Is there even one other suspect who wrote on that type of paper? Not that I am aware of.

He autographed cars in black felt tip pen. Other than the ridiculous argument of people who wrote "Just Married" on cars, I don’t know of another suspect who AUTOGRAPHED cars in felt tip.

The dates of two of the Z murders correspond to the birth and death of his father and mother, respectively.

KQ is the only suspect I know of who could have known what "sla" means, and he said to me in 2006 that it means "kill."

He "just happened" to be on the streets of PH shortly after the Stine murder. AP has changed his story so much that his "alibi" for KQ based on how fast AP walked around the block is a thing of the past.

ALA was a great suspect and lived close to the Vallejo crime scenes. But even he wasn’t accosted by the police after any of the murders. But KQ was.

When I interviewed KQ in 2006 at HIS request to "clear the air" about his involvement in the case, he couldn’t bring himself to tell me the truth and lied to me as to his whereabouts on the night of the Stine murder, as well as about his prior experience with sidearms. Had someone had to handicap what KQ was going to say to me before he and I had that meeting, people wold have said that he is completely innocent and has nothing to hide, so he will tell the truth. Wrong. So now people say that although he lied, he is still innocent. LOL. You can’t win.

Mike

In point of fact, no one has tied all five Zodiac murders to a single suspect…. hence, why there are still Team Zodiac theories. I would like to see more of a deep dive into Qvale’s early life. I would focus research on where he has been and whether there are Zodiac-style unsolved murders that follow him. I find it hard to believe that he started killing in his late 40s. If he’s a killer, he’s been a killer since his late teens or early 20s.

from my perspective:

Pros: not a bad match to PH sketch
was near the PH scene and somehow claims to have forgotten about it
lots of proximity coincidences

Cons: too thin
would require a great deal of effort and skill to create the persona of a man less intelligent and much crazier than he
DNA didn’t match
no handwriting match to speak of

Not a big deal to me:
the bad cars-would make sense that he’d use disposables
age-was fairly young looking
wealth, station- wouldn’t be the first serial killer who was successful at his day job
hanging out after the crime- the stine crime was absurdly bold in every way, reasonable to think he’d continue to be bold about it and hang around to enjoy the show. Somewhat suspicious that a police dog wouldn’t give him a sniff I guess.
criminal profiling: most profilers say Z was schizophrenic, one says he was "power assertive," I don’t really care about it either way

He was 85+ when Rodelli spoke to him. I mean, I have gotten many conflicting statements from octogenarians over the years when speaking of the same events. It is hard to say that he lied. We really have no idea how good his memory was at that time. Hell, people today think Joe Biden is basically a walking zombie and he isn’t even 80! I don’t know what to make of Qvale’s interview with Rodelli in 2006. I will give you one big reason why I think Qvale probably was not Z: he bothered to speak to Rodelli at all. Why would he do that? What good could come from it? This was 2 years after BTK was caught, which made national headlines. If Qvale were Z, you bet that he followed the BTK case. If he were Z, I don’t think he would have met with Rodelli at all. To be fair, an no disrespect to Mike, is there anything he could have told Mike to dissuade him? Probably not.

Con- if he was indeed the Man seen by Palisetti walking his dog the night of the Stine murder, he would not have had time to change and get his dog as Palisetti was only a moment behind him after the murder.

Con- I have not seen a lot of writing from Mr X, but most of it does not look like Z in my opinion

Pro- Was in Riverside the date of the Bates murder supposedly,and I think that case is connected to Z, or at least the Riverside desk poem & Bates letters

So, let’s play this out… Qvale leaves his race activities to go to RCC, kills Bates, travels home. Then, he comes back to RCC, sneaks into the library or music room and carves the poem on a desk? I would believe that Qvale was abducted by little green men before I believe that.

Just an aside, but anyone who goes to the newspapers with an alien/ flying saucer story, to me, screams of someone who is craving media attention, even at the cost of their reputation. It’s hard to deny he has some affinity with seeing his name in the papers. KQ liked publicity.

Except he was a WWII pilot. A great number of WWII pilots have commented on flying saucers.

As soon as Z rounded the corner, the Kids came out and started walking towards the cab, and Palisetti intercepted them as they were a few feet from the car. He stopped them and ordered them back in and went around the corner after Z. I am thinking he was only a minute or two behind Z. Remember, along the way, Z was also witnessed by Fouke. He wasn’t running. If anything, Z probably slowed down as not to look nervous, so i think that would have made it less likely that MrX would have time to change his clothes and get his dog

Since the timeframes are all in doubt, I don’t know that this is the most compelling argument. Although, I do tend to agree with you. Z had blood on him. How much, we can’t say. I doubt he was covered in blood, but he had blood on his hands, at minimum. Here is an experiment: put chicken blood on your hands, wash your hands. Time how long it takes to wash your hands to get all the blood off. Qvale had to wash his hands thoroughly clean and change clothes with enough time to get back out on the street. I don’t know how long that would take, but I’m thinking 20 minutes is a good estimate. I don’t know if he had that long. But I can’t say for certain.

Still, if Z was KQ and he roamed the backroads of the San Francisco region for people to kill, that particular car certainly drew his attention because he was the one who imported it from Europe. Z was sick, so I guess tiny details like that could have turned his killer instincts on.

Hi,

I believe it is about more than just that. It is also about salting the case with subtle CLUES to his identity, which I believe KQ was more than liberal at sprinkling throughout both the letters and the crime scenes, as I discuss in The Hunt for Zodiac.

Mike

I don’t follow the argument. So, had the car had been a Chevy instead of a VW Kharman Ghia, Z would not have stopped to kill Hartnell and Shepherd or would not have wrote on the car door? It was just the car that was there. I don’t see any significance to it whatsoever. You’re reading KQ into this on this point.

Hi,

Two misconceptions about Zodiac and KQ are often
used to discredit KQ as a suspect. The first, about Zodiac, is that he was a "powerless loser" who killed to make himself feel important. This was parroted by Mark Hewitt on Very Scary People. One of the founders of the field of behavioral profiling, Richard Walter, begs to differ. Unlike the theologist-cum-author, who has no known expertise in profiling criminals, Walter’s profile of the killer is of a wealthy and powerful person like KQ.

People also say that KQ would not have risked being recognized by killing Stine in his own neighborhood. On the same VSP show retired FBI profiler Mary Ellen O’Toole indicates that Zodiac had a need to undertake high risk crimes, thus laying bare the fact that the notion that the Stine murder was too "high risk" a crime for KQ to undertake is no more than a misconception about KQ as Zodiac.

I recently spoke behind the scenes on another social media site to a distant relative of KQ. This person, who had also shown up on this board in 2017 for a brief period of time, certainly has an open mind to the possibility that KQ was Zodiac. This person said that KQ possessed some personality traits that would support the notion that he fit the profile and therefore could have been a serial killer. In fact, this person was even willing to give up KQ as a possible for yet another famous and unsolved high-profile case, saying that KQ may have owned a house in the area where these crimes were committed. I won’t go into that for now, as I check further into this case and shield this person from exposure at this time.

The important thing is that this person did not dismiss my allegations and evidence out of hand, as some people in the public domain eagerly do while both pushing their own agendas and refusing to even learn about the evidence against KQ in my book.

So while many message board posters may contest and even refuse to refuse to entertain the possibility that KQ was Zodiac, this family member certainly does not.

There are also people who question the truthfulness of all the information that is in my book. At least those pieces of information that are not part of the nearly 200 footnotes that I have in the book. After about 2 and 1/2 years I am still waiting for someone to disprove even one thing that I said. And yet some people insist on implying but I distorted facts, intentionally misquoted people or put words in their mouths, or lied about things in order to make my case, all of which is patently and the monster bully okay untrue.

I don’t disagree with most of what you said. I think KQ could be Z, but you have 3 murders that you cannot connect him to whatsoever. I think you should follow up on his activities outside the Z murders. If he was a killer, he was killing before 1969. If there is not a trail of bodies in his wake, he was likely not a killer. I can’t think of one serial killer that started in his late 40s.

For years uninformed amateurs have contradicted Richard Walter’s wealthy, power-assertive profile of Zodiac. The profile serves to greatly winnow down the number of viable suspects in the case to a scant few. Amateur investigators have freely regaled us with their "profiles" of the killer, even though, as amateurs, they have no clue nor any theoretical/research-based foundation for their claims. Most say that Z was a "sexual killer" or a "sexual sadist" and a "loser." Some of these profiles have found their way into books. But as more professional profilers weigh in (except John Douglas, who is lower on the profiling pecking order than Walter), like Mary Ellen O’Toole, who mused that you do not see any emotion or anger, such as beating and battering of the victims, in the Zodiac murders, a clear picture of Zodiac as a non-sexual killer is emerging. Mr. Walter equates beatings with sexual crimes. Here is a quote from my book,

"In addition to the above facts, Mr. Walter pointed out that absent from the Zodiac attacks are the types of injuries typical of sexual crimes—beating, strangulation, recreational cutting/picquerism (i.e., probing knife play that which is not needed to effect death), and percussive injury. This once again points away from a sexual killer."

So the crime scene evidence says that Z killed for power, not for sex or out of anger. And that he was certainly no sadist.

My suspect is not made to fit the facts. The facts fit my suspect.

I agree with some of the power-assertive description. The killings clearly were not sexual in nature. I don’t believ the Zodiac was some complete loser, drooling psychopath, or Norman Bates-esque mama’s boy.

One of the things that stands out to me is the execution of the crimes themselves. They are amateurish and opportunistic at best. KQ was a fighter pilot, a racer, and all-around risk taker. How do you explain a man in his 40s with his resume arching from shooting kids in the back to stabbing people in broad daylight in costume?

Also, by 1970 his empire was vast. BMC was selling well over 100k cars per year and he was beginning to manufacture cars as well as sell them. Would he have had the time to break away on the weekend?

Right…and not just one weekend. How many time would Z have had to go out hunting to find victims? Does anyone believe that he just found a victim every night he went looking? What crimes did he pass on? My guess is he had to be hunting several night just to find one victim. Hunters will go out on many occasions and not find game.

I think Mike’s best contribution to Z-Land is bringing in the power-assertive profile. I suspect Z was very successful. I usually want to throw the computer through the window whenever I see poster profiles of a hermit avenger/loser.

Zodiac was a domestic terrorist. One day people will understand that.

Based on another thread regarding Zelm’s wife saying that Foulke and her husband did stop and talk to Z, I am convinced they did. I also believe Z was aware Lindsey Robbins had been watching him and then come outside to further watch and even follow him.

So, I can’t imagine Z, who had made a clean escape complete with his shirt trophy to taunt LE with, returning to the scene where Lindsey, Foulke, and Zelms had converged. Did he think Zelms and Foulke, especially, could chat with him and then 15 minutes later not recognize him?

Watching things unfold from a distance, maybe. But walking so close to the crime scene as to be interviewed by police? How would Z know that Zelms or Foulke wouldn’t be the cop to encounter, and interview him first? Z was brazen, but killing Stine, being seen by 3 people, talking with 2 of them (trained officers at that) and then walking back to where they had congregated, would’ve been outright insane.

Pelissetti and Peda met the witnesses, not Fouke and Zelms. Otherwise, Fouke and Zelms would have known to look for a white guy.

Pelissetti then encountered KQ while searching for the suspect on foot, about a block away. Nobody’s saying KQ "walked back" to the cab.

Holding the desktop against KQ won’t do either, IMO.

I won’t get into the tired old tirades again, it’s enough to say that we don’t know for a fact that Z had anything to do with it. It’s a contested and controversial piece of evidence.

The state of CA experts think it was Z,as does SFPD, and seemingly the FBI….if one puts any weight in their opinions. If Z didn’t write the desktop, then connecting MrX to Riverside is not important, but just in case, backers of MrX as Z, are quick to point out that he was at the Riverside races that weekend

Hi Morf,

I saw you on the GSK documentary on ID last night. My thoughts on Morill’s opinion is that it wasn’t based on a sufficient sample of the "Bates had to die" letter writer’s writing sample. He had a lot of Zodiac correspondences to work with but only a small sample of the other suspect’s writing. I don’t think other document examiner’s would find his opinion that compelling. It seems that the FBI and other experts of the day really deferred to Morill for some reason. I am not convinced that CBJ was a Zodiac victim because the Confession Letter sounds almost nothing like Zodiac Letters. Zodiac never referred to a victim by name. He never humanized a victim. He called them things like "boy", "girl", or "slaves". Plus, the Confession Letter is replete with sexual angst. Zodiac was cold and clinical. Just my thoughts. I could be wrong.

Pelissetti and Peda met the witnesses, not Fouke and Zelms. Otherwise, Fouke and Zelms would have known to look for a white guy.

Pelissetti then encountered KQ while searching for the suspect on foot, about a block away. Nobody’s saying KQ "walked back" to the cab.

I’m not saying KQ walked all the way up to the cab. I’m saying he walked into the area where police were talking with people and other witnesses were possibly still milling around. Would KQ somehow be able to know it would be Pelissetti who would approach him, and not Foulke or Zelms?

Had Foulke or Zelms been the officer who encountered him after the murder, instead of Pelissetti, do we agree they would’ve easily recognized him, had he been the guy they’d stopped when they first arrived on scene, 15 minutes earlier?

There is no way KQ can commit the crime, go home, clean up, leash up his dog, go back to the scene where police are questioning people, and be thinking "Those 2 cops I talked with won’t be lingering around to see me again."