i think he was pretty random and spur-of-the-moment which ended up serving him well. he seems to have started on ideas several times that went nowhere – the bus bombings, the belli help letter, the stuff about slaves, etc. it seems like one or two letters would reference something like that and then he wouldn’t bring it up again. strikes me as someone who wants the public voice but doesn’t know what he wants to say with it.

Not so much smart as lucky. One of those people who have a few tricks up his sleeve but not very competent during the execution of said tricks. For instance, leaving bloody fingerprints behind, or getting caught in the act of killing. Or leaving people alive even though he had every chance to kill them. And so on and so forth.

Smart superficially, but he was a terrible speller, his grammar was average at best, and his creation of codes was rudimentary. He had a way of making people think he was smart because he (likely) stole his ideas from comic books and movies. But no originality of his own, and his execution of crimes bordered on disorganized. He was arrogant and pretentious and sloppy.

Don’t really get where people think he was super-smart. Because he used the term "radians"? A mathematical concept taught to eighth-graders?

The Zodiac killer seemed really smart and calculating. The idea of killing so he can have slaves for the afterlife seems illogical. Where did this come from? Do you think he really thought he was collecting slaves for the afterlife, or was this just something he wrote to freak people out?

The Zodiac killer ‘seemed’ really smart and calculating.

That might be a better way to put it. JR in his reply pretty much covers that aspect of most people’s perception of the whole thing. Rightly so but the longer anyone is around this case the more you start to wonder what actually was his purpose in doing this or that or whatever, beyond what it appears at first or if there even was one. Truth be told unless he’s caught or has left a detailed explanation for everything somewhere we won’t really know.

My own take on it at this point is it was all a game. A horrible and life destroying game but a game nevertheless and he approached it as such. He wanted entertained and he choose the vehicle of his own murderous compulsions to achieve that. I think he just put crap out there to see what people/LE/press would do with it. We saw that with the busbomb threat. He starts off with the shooting approach then he berates LE for believing him. Then he moves it on to a bomb threat and takes that ‘concept’ further even ‘supposedly’ amending his design. No bomb went off, no bomb was ever found. Was there a bomb? Who know’s?

As JR addresses in his post regarding him being smart. I don’t think he was either but he was creative and that’s a different kind of smart. Creative pretty much covers the whole of his campaign and by that I don’t mean that he was brilliant. I’m honestly not sure he would have been capable of being that. However he might have been and this is where it gets murky. He might have been by accident and he might have realized that eventually and tried to keep it going, keep it interesting for himself and the watching public. Lets blow up a bus, lets hide a bomb, lets hint at other murders, lets semi-kidnap people or just claim to have, lets make ciphers, lets use strange symbols, lets quote from musicals, lets try poetry, lets try and sneak letters into newspapers with different hand writing etc etc etc.

Considering all that, and it’s quite a lot to consider, it’s (for me anyway) nearly impossible to take any of it at face value especially things like this afterlife business. What I think we have to do, and mostly do ….umm….do lol, with this case is to try and read between the lines then take a step back and a step closer and then have a lie down. He created huge puzzle to untangle and that was probably his over-riding approach if there was one.

So…..smart and calculating? not in the traditional sense. Clever and creative, chaotic and adaptable however … I would say he was. He may not have been organised or even careful but he used what he did have to deadly and confusing effect. He attacked, he escaped, he avoided capture and he got to play his game for many years. This guy’s head was running all the time "I lie awake at nights" and he implemented some of what it came up with whether that was an actual murder or attempted murder or something to write about. It all got thrown in there. Layer upon layer upon layer. ‘Zodiac’ was about the only constant and even that became ‘a friend’, ‘a citizen’ … a ‘phantom’ and he ‘truley'[sic] has thus far proved to be.

Brevity is not my strong point. .

Thank you for your detailed response.

Imo, the Zodiac was his great work of fiction, his masterpiece. He needed to impose his will on others and he achieved this, in part, by getting people to believe him. This was part of his power trip. He’s like a little kid who tells others something that can’t possibly be true, but gets very upset when he isn’t believed. Well, guess what? Many people would trust the motivation of someone capable of such crimes as just this crazy without question. He didn’t believe it; but it was enough for him for you to believe that he did. What greater power is there than that?

I think that teenagers would make crappy slaves. Sorry if that is insensitive. I really mean that I do not believe Zodiac believed what he said. Why he said it? That’s anyone’s guess.

He was clearly into at least the idea of projecting an interest in occult phenomenon. Even his name strongly shows this… while his actual thoughts seem to indicate that the astrological zodiac had no real significance to him whatsoever.

That sort of thing is in no way unique to him, it’s common for many criminals to cloak their motivations in larger than life and dark imagery; so called "Satanic" activity seems to be practiced exclusively by people who do not truly believe in it. The Occult phenomenon was also a popular expression of the Hippies and other youth culture of the time, especially in the Bay.

To me that shows an immature personality.

ducking 2001 Yup gotta love that comment teenagers would make crappy slaves.LoL sooo true

To me that shows an immature personality.

I agree.

duckking – agreed. i don’t think he was being serious, i think it was part of creating the persona of the zodiac, which imo is why he variously dropped and picked up aspects of the persona like that. in the ten or fifteen letters from him, one or two talk about slaves, a few about bombs, a few about killing kids, a few with ciphers, a few built to look like they hold clues, but nothing consistent throughout his body of work except he spent a LOT of time and effort trolling LE and the press.

Satanic vs. Egyptian vs. other theories…here is the Egyptian one:

‘Shabti’ sculptures meant to protect the mummy..
http://www.mylearning.org/ancient-egypt … fe/p-2874/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ushabti

However the idea is sort of incorrect as they take slaves with them rather than getting them in their afterlife by killing them..

BUT: Here we go with a San Jose Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum dealing with such issues..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosicrucia … ian_Museum

The museum is directly next to Hoover Middle School, San Jose

QT

This is a post of min from another thread in this forum on the same subject:
(in the future please check if there already is a thread on the subject you want to post about)

viewtopic.php?f=25&t=1060&p=24956&hilit=slaves#p24956

In reference to this threads topic SLAVES IN THE AFTERLIFE :

"In the days before Patrick and Columba the Celts would collect heads and display them on
Samhain to ward off spirits and remind them that they would be subject to
them as slaves in the Afterlife."

You can read the full post in the link added above.

Found an interrestig sentence in this book:

"The Griffins of Passage : Seven Stories by Alex Farkas":
"A collection of short stories incorporating science fiction, European history, contemporary American history, and the concerns of European immigrants.
Set in America, Europe, and beyond."

In the story called "Lawrence of Pannonia"/ "The King of Fire" Alex Farkas wrote:
"old pagan belief: the enemy you kill in battle will become your servant in the afterlife."

https://books.google.dk/books?id=5fSgcA … 22&f=false

Alex Farkas (Alexandru):
Farkas was born and educated in Hungary, escaping after the anti-Soviet revolution in 1956. He stayed in England until 1960, when he immigrated to the U.S. He worked as a mechanical engineer in Pennsylvania, Maryland for 3 years, and for 27 years in California’s Silicon Valley. Now he studies physics and does consulting and writing.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-farkas-8a163738

Seagull can you find any San Francisco adresses for Alex Farkas?
Because in his Linkedin.com profile it says that he lives in San Francisco Bay Area, USA but I have not been able to find any adress in SF
I also have not been able to fin his DOB.

More on the subject, servants(slaves) in the afterlife, connected to Hungary
and here also even connected to celestial constellations, the Big Dipper !:

http://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.dk/20 … chive.html

Folklore Thursday: Celestial transport is kind of a mess
Today is Folklore Thursday on social media! If you want to find out more, follow this link, or click on the #FolkloreThursday hashtag on Twitter! Hosted by @FolkloreThursday.

Returning to our regularly scheduled #FolkloreThursday fun in 2016! I’ll be continuing my new theme of the folklore of natural phenomena and constellations from Hungary. So far, we have had rainbows that cause sex-change, and a very klutzy star.

Today, we talk about the Big Dipper. Or, as Hungarians know it:

Göncölszekér (Göncöl’s cart)
(Sometimes called Nagygöncöl – Big Göncöl -, as opposed to Kisgöncöl – Small Göncöl)

Göncöl, according to legend, was a táltos, a wise man or shaman, a "knowing person" who traveled in a cart with a crooked shaft that was not drawn by horses. He could talk to animals, birds, and plants, he could read the stars, and perform miracles. No one saw him die, so people concluded that he had ascended into the sky, and now his cart with the crooked shaft can be seen at night among the constellations as he continues his wandering.
(This legend comes from old records about the folklore of Great Rye Island, or, as we know it, Csallóköz. The record also claims that Göncöl was a popular name in the area, even though the táltos never had children. Ahem.)

Other names for Ursa Maior include:
Carriage of Angels
Cart of Elijah
Cart of Job
Cart of Saint John
Johnny’s Cart
Cart of Saint Peter
Devil’s Cart
Star Cart

This is one crowded vehicle of celestial transport, people.
Whoever sits on the Cart, however, has to answer for quite a few things, including, but not limited to:

1. The stars. Some legends say Göncöl / Job / whoever is driving is supposed to keep an eye on the stars.
2. The Milky Way. There are stories about how the cart is transporting hay, but it has been losing the cargo on the way, hence the Milky Way.
(Hey! It rhymed!)
3. The crooked shaft. There is at least one delightful story where Saint Peter accidentally drives the cart into the Pearly Gates of Heaven, and breaks the shaft. Great job, Peter. Don’t pray and drive.
4. Yet another legend claims that the cart is driven by a king who was killed by a pagan Hungarian warrior to make him the warrior’s servant in the afterlife.

More …

http://www.freemediaproductions.info/th … 267-2.html

"Btw, I recall reading that the pagan Magyars (Hungarians) that attacked Western Europe about the same time as the Vikings, had a belief that all men that they would slay would have to serve them in the afterlife. This kind of religion encouraged them to be as warlike as possible…"