Or just that the hoax writer of the ’78 letter and card copied, traced real Zodiac handwriting, which was pretty much the conclusions of those that deemed them as non matching.

As far as I know no one has ever disputed the matches for the other letters. I don’t think you can base that on a reason to dismiss Morrill’s other matches.

An expert would know the difference.

Between what? Traced and untraced handwriting? Sure… but doesn’t that imply that Morrill is not an expert? He is an expert, so that means people who disagree with him must not be.

If Zodiac wrote the ’78 letter, Ross can’t be Zodiac. If he didn’t, then he could be. So what are you suggesting here?

Or just that the hoax writer of the ’78 letter and card copied, traced real Zodiac handwriting, which was pretty much the conclusions of those that deemed them as non matching.

As far as I know no one has ever disputed the matches for the other letters. I don’t think you can base that on a reason to dismiss Morrill’s other matches.

Good point D.

Back in 1978 Toschi was under heavy scrutiny as the possible forger of that letter. Everyone who bashes Morrill forgets that he had to play politics with that letter. Morrill saying the letter was fake and thus forged, would be like saying "Toschi forged it." So Morrill was simply defending Toschi.

But again, it doesn’t take a State of CA handwriting expert to see just how close the Riverside letters match Zodiac’s.

Or just that the hoax writer of the ’78 letter and card copied, traced real Zodiac handwriting, which was pretty much the conclusions of those that deemed them as non matching.

As far as I know no one has ever disputed the matches for the other letters. I don’t think you can base that on a reason to dismiss Morrill’s other matches.

An expert would know the difference.

Between what? Traced and untraced handwriting? Sure… but doesn’t that imply that Morrill is not an expert? He is an expert, so that means people who disagree with him must not be.

If Zodiac wrote the ’78 letter, Ross can’t be Zodiac. If he didn’t, then he could be. So what are you suggesting here?

That Morrill wasn’t infallible. None of them were.

I don’t just think one can put 100% faith in Morrill then disregard his beliefs when it doesn’t mesh. I think Morrill himself would tell you his experience would tell you he would know if someone traced something.

Personally, I think it was a fake, so sure, the possibility remains Ross could have been Zodiac. But this is my point—I simply believe Morrill, at times, made mistakes.

But this is my point—I simply believe Morrill, at times, made mistakes.

Sacrilege!

He was incapable of making mistakes. And he never aimed to please Toschi or the SFPD. Well, except for that one incident in 1978, that is.

And while other handwriting experts have been shown to be right about 55% of the time (impressive stats, who can deny it? More right than wrong! Not like flipping a coin at all!) Morrill was definitely right about everything he ever did – especially the Zodiac material, there can be no question about it.

Shame on you.

When we pick and choose which letters we believe are really from z, or which crimes are really his, where does it end????

People that are smarter than us, have more training and resources than us, and have access to all of the evidence, believe that all of the z crimes are from one person and that all of the confirmed z letters are from one person, and the FBI backs them up. They even back up the Riverside stuff, even if one ignores the same choice of misspelled words and phrases that z would later use, and the pattern of asking for the letter to be published and making a call to police (confession letter).

Not saying not to have your own opinions but in the end, how does any one of us here know more than the CA Doj, the FBI, etc? How can we pick and choose what stuff we want to say is z, and what stuff isn’t?

what if we stop worrying about it and look at the larger picture of what either case means? if zodiac was involved with bates (writing letters, killing her) then he’s from riverside. if he wrote the 1978 letter then he was alive in 1978. if he wrote the eureka letter then he was alive in 1991. if he killed the domingos couple then he was active before bates and in santa barbara. all of these are if>then statements. since we don’t know any of this for sure, the best thing to do is for everyone to build their profile based on one of the two sides of the coin on any of these things and make a compelling argument. what ends up happening is fifty page threads about whether someone’s "s" matches. in the end, knowing that only answers which side of an if>then statement you land on. since no one seems to be convincing anyone else, for my money it’s easier to just say "i believe he was/wasn’t involved with bates and my profile or theory is blah blah blah based on that".

When we pick and choose which letters we believe are really from z, or which crimes are really his, where does it end????

People that are smarter than us, have more training and resources than us, and have access to all of the evidence, believe that all of the z crimes are from one person and that all of the confirmed z letters are from one person, and the FBI backs them up. They even back up the Riverside stuff, even if one ignores the same choice of misspelled words and phrases that z would later use, and the pattern of asking for the letter to be published and making a call to police (confession letter).

Not saying not to have your own opinions but in the end, how does any one of us here know more than the CA Doj, the FBI, etc? How can we pick and choose what stuff we want to say is z, and what stuff isn’t?

The difference is that we are not the experts and even the experts disagree. As mentioned time and time again, "inconclusive" isn’t back up.

I simply think if you are going to staunchly support Morrill about things such as a poem carved into a desk with a pen, then you must back his (quite adamant) belief the 1978 letter was Zodiac as well.

Did the FBI back up Morrill on the 78 letter? I know they did for the Riverside stuff. And technically, Morrill was probably correct about the 78 letter being from Z, although, somebody had likely constructed it from zodiac’s previous letters. I don’t simply support Morrill,I also use my own eyes to come to that conclusion, as well as the same choice of words, misspellings,etc used in the Bates case, that Z would use a few years later, along with the same MO of asking the letter be printed, and stating that they made a call to police after the crime

But again, my question is, how does one pick and choose which things are Z and which are not? I know this is sort of like asking, What came 1st the chicken or the egg? There is no answer that we can use to prove it, and people will not be swayed one way or another

I think I have made my point.

what if we stop worrying about it and look at the larger picture of what either case means? if zodiac was involved with bates (writing letters, killing her) then he’s from riverside. if he wrote the 1978 letter then he was alive in 1978. if he wrote the eureka letter then he was alive in 1991. if he killed the domingos couple then he was active before bates and in santa barbara. all of these are if>then statements. since we don’t know any of this for sure, the best thing to do is for everyone to build their profile based on one of the two sides of the coin on any of these things and make a compelling argument. what ends up happening is fifty page threads about whether someone’s "s" matches. in the end, knowing that only answers which side of an if>then statement you land on. since no one seems to be convincing anyone else, for my money it’s easier to just say "i believe he was/wasn’t involved with bates and my profile or theory is blah blah blah based on that".

That’s a good approach and it should work – in theory.

In practice, though, I can guarantee that if I wrote up a comprehensive theory about the case which ignored the Riverside connection, the first response I’d get would be along the lines of…but what about [insert whatever you please pertaining to Bates]?

I’m the same myself – not getting on any high horse here. I tell myself frequently that I should just ignore every damn contestable, disputed, non-confirmed or…whatever it may be…aspect of the case and focus solely on what I think is undeniably relevant. But I’m just as bad as everyone else – I keep bickering and arguing over every little thing.

On topic (the topic being handwriting):

Can we reasonably (without picking and choosing whatever suits our prejudices best) consider A, B, C, D and E genuine Z letters (all of which confirmed by Morrill) while at the same time dispute F, G, H and I (also confirmed by Morrill)?

Well, yes – I think we can. And here’s why:

* Morrill isn’t a scientist whose conclusions we can’t dispute without disputing the science itself – because there is no hard science there to begin with. His conclusions aren’t firm evidence we must either accept or deny, they belong in a different category.

* He was an expert in a field which has a very different status today than it had back then. In my opinion there’s a tendency in these endless debates to completely disregard this fact.

* Many of the Z letters can be considered independently of the handwriting. There are other factors present which enable us to conclude, in our amateurish way, that they’re genuine (or not).

PS Even more on topic:

It would seem that higher education institutions in the USA (such as RCC) do keep records of exam results going back to…well, in principle there’s no limit. You can obtain extremely old results in some cases. And in some cases they even archive copies of assessed (graded) papers. However, there doesn’t seem to be any uniform practice as regards the latter.

In short: One can probably find out what grade Ross got on his English paper – but whether a copy of the actual, written submission is obtainable is impossible to say without further inquiry. I doubt it very much – but I guess it couldn’t hurt to ask.

PRO

In the "Little List" letter, Z misspells serenader as SERAnader.

On his SS application Ross misspells Syracuse as SERAcuse.

I feel like composing a syrenade about the logic in this thread, but I might opt for a seringe of strong opyates instead.

I feel like composing a syrenade about the logic in this thread, but I might opt for a seringe of strong opyates instead.

Do I detect a knote of carkasime in your tone.. that’s not like you Norse. Are you feeling yourself? or should I rephrase that

Do I detect a knote of carkasime in your tone.. that’s not like you Norse. Are you feeling yourself? or should I rephrase that

Hehe, I’m fairly fine – but thanks for asking.

Just a joke. Not a very good one, admittedly, but I was not 100% sober at the time.

Do I detect a knote of carkasime in your tone.. that’s not like you Norse. Are you feeling yourself? or should I rephrase that

Hehe, I’m fairly fine – but thanks for asking.

Just a joke. Not a very good one, admittedly, but I was not 100% sober at the time.

Is your picture of Arne Saknussemm?