No.

Zodiac’s style choices were cognitive. They were not as a result of mental illness. I’m sorry to be so blunt on that but that’s my professional opinion. He could have been mentally ill but the style choices and decisions made in character selection in those ‘different’ letters are not caused by illness. No way.

Sometimes a person suffering from schizophrenia will capitalize letters in the middle of a word.

That’s interesting to note.

To the best of my knowledge Zodiac never did that. I say to the best of my knowledge because I would prefer to check everything before giving a definite reply but it’s always been a particular bugbear of mine that this myth exists. That Zodiac mixed upper and lowercase letters incorrectly in his writing. He didn’t. I think he incorrectly capitalized one word in all those letters and it was in the LA Times letter. He wrote ‘They’ when it should have been ‘they’ because it was after a comma.

Correct me if I’m wrong, Trav, I defer to your expertise on this — but the author of the confirmed Z letters wrote with a certain amount of convention, no matter what style he elected to use. Whether the misspellings are intentional or not, there is at least an attempt to structure sentences. I am not aware of any capitalizing, mid-word. I mix my U&LC often when writing quickly, mostly out of an attempt to be efficient and more easily understood. Z seems to have labored a bit more over his missives (although I’m speculating, here.)

TBH I would be speculating too in that regard. The official line is that for the most part his missives were freely written although I would have to do some research to ascertain ‘exactly’ what that means. As a quick answer I’m not sure if he labored over them. I’m not sure if he made some things look that way. I think he might have. Then sometimes I change my mind lol.

Anyway. We seem to have drifted off topic here. Best pull it back.

Well two things we know about Ross that are wild cards here are one, Ross learned about writing in different styles, and Ross was likely was on meds that might effect his writing

Trav: As a quick remark to your quick reply, I’d say that Morrill’s verdict: Z’s writing/printing is natural, is worth discussing further – and I don’t think we’ve nearly exhausted that subject.

But it’s not for this thread.

Painful thread to read….game of telephone through the looking glass.

Whatever happened to this guy referenced here, whom Ross tried to kill with knife and later visited him in mental hospital to find him ‘banging on a piano?’ ‘Singing Beatles songs’ etc.?

His only window with Ross is three weeks in 1970? Caught him eating butter? Remember this stuff, don’t lose this.

If that yearbook handwriting matches, this guy becomes gold….

Thoughts on mental faculties, something debated throughout thread with many other painful off topic riffs:

Could he lift a fork and eat? Was he ever locked at Napa State? Criminally insane?

While he himself may have thought he was, in 1966….it did not and would not ‘stop the game…’

Info I see says different, ‘outpatient capable’ individual who was given institutional haircuts and read newspapers. Knew engines, was one time ham radio op enthusiast, actor, cryptology student, mechanical writing talent who liked blue felt pens and Barracuta jackets.

Who rented his room out when he went away for inpatient stays, and did his ‘weekend kill rampages’ match time during those times…

Hot wiring an American car in that era was very easy, he would not have to own one….had a guy we followed on America’s Most Wanted go for a year upstate NY before he was caught, car to car to car. The problem is ditching car not getting one. Ditching then blending back into normalcy.

His driver records are obtainable, as are his hospital records, but that brother who ‘doesn’t know anything about any of this’ would be one to get those….

Skyward, have you mistaken this forum for a creative writing forum? Where are you coming up with this stuff?

Interesting thx for that, no it was from the four hours it took me to read that thread