Ross Top, Riverside Middle, Z Bottom.

Why so many variations? Was Z concerned about an uppercase R?

We need more samples and TBH whilst it’s great having the SS Applications to start with they aren’t the most reliable things for comparison. For one they are too limited and the quality isn’t good enough. Not much we do about quality on anything we can get regarding this case and its age but certainly more of any POI’s writing is a must and if possible their natural handwriting rather than official forms.

Ross’s handwriting still bothers me. I’m just not seeing it. I can see why you guys wonder about certain aspects of it but honestly unless we get more samples there’s no way we can make a fair comparison.

Let me show you what we’re up against.

Ok, starting at the top. Those two S’s either side of the S in Sullivan. Not bad but not good enough. If you look at his other S’s the top half of them are almost block like or square and whilst Zodiac does have some that are close his nearest equivalents are actually the reverse of this. His ‘block’ section is on the bottom of the S as a habit.

Next one’s impressive. The ‘flick’ bottomed S. Or at least it would be if we hadn’t seen it before. In Manalli’s writing. So that’s a habit but not an exclusive one.

The upper case H’ isn’t bad. The left descender is slightly longer as are Zodiac’s.

The V in Sullivan. Quite good. Rounded bottom with an elevated right hand ascender. This is very much a Zodiac trait.

Upper case A. Mmmmm not sure. Outer shape not bad but I don’t think the cross bar is at the right height to be considered a match.

Lower case k in ‘unknown’. Not enough to be sure. If the top bar (circled) is consistently foreshortened in Ross’s writing as it appears here then no. Not a match. Looks to be a 3 stroke but we have to be really fussy about the details and that second stroke length would be enough for me to rule it out.

The w in New York. This one I like. Flat leading edge into a slightly V shaped first section. Second section U shaped with an elevated ascender to finish. Middle flush to top. Very good.

The Y in New York. Mmmm again pretty good but not conclusive due to sample quality and distortion. Ross’s Y is compressed and skewed slightly due to the sample not being flat. Still, it’s in the ball park.

Now ….

The N’s / n’s.

If those are lowercase n’s in ross’s writing then NO. Not a match. Zodiac’s lower case n’s consistently start with a descender. i’.e he writes down from his start point to begin the character. Irregardless of style.

If they are upper case N’s then whilst the style isn’t a match the construction method at least is. Unless you want to count the backward one he put on the back of the Halloween Card to mess with us.

Then we have the ‘n’ in Ross’s signature. It’s a construction match (to Z’s lower case n’s) and a very close style similarity to the Marco letter. But it’s a signature. Without more samples that may very well be the only time he does that n.

Ok.

The remainder of the things encircled in red.

The M. Don’t like it. Can’t find anything in Zodiac’s writing that compares.
Lowercase t. Nope. Again no comparisons found.
Curved right hand ascender on the N’s. No. Anything close in Z’s writing shows a preference for left hand curvature.
S & K already mentioned.

The whole mix of upper and lower case really bothers me. For one thing I don’t know if it’s a habit (more samples) and if it is then it’s most certainly not a Zodiac habit despite popular belief, for some reason. Conclusion? Inconclusive (always wanted to say that lol ) but as I said I’m not convinced … yet. Despite the similarities it just doesn’t ‘have that swing’. There’s a rhythm and a flow to writing that we unfortunately can’t reliably test or even see in these limited samples.

Trav, now I am floored, you pointed out similarities I did not see, but made good points about them. Of course you pointed out differences too, but I am encouraged by multiple similarities. While we have seen some similarities in other people’s writing, none of them closely match the sketch and can be placed in the RCC library, so to have a Guy that meets those criterias in addition to having multiple writing similarities, is very encouraging.

Trav, I just don’t know how to get more writing samples from Ross but will try.

Trav, I just don’t know how to get more writing samples from Ross but will try.

Perhaps Allen?

I took out the bit about the uppercase L’s. Z does do them but they aren’t consistent with Ross’s in regards the length of the turn. Sorry about that.

Trav, I hate to be a pain, any way you can put all of Ross’s letters on one line, and all of Z’s on another side by side or over each other, as opposed to being all intermingled? I think my eyes are failing LOL, I need all the help I can get

Trav, I just don’t know how to get more writing samples from Ross but will try.

Perhaps Allen?

I tried 2 different phone numbers for him, neither was in svc. I also have a tentative mailing address for him, but it’s pretty outdated. I also sent him a message on Ancestry.com as he is a member there, but he has not logged in for a year so who knows if he will get it.

Trav, I hate to be a pain, any way you can put all of Ross’s letters on one line, and all of Z’s on another side by side or over each other, as opposed to being all intermingled? I think my eyes are failing LOL, I need all the help I can get

Trav, I hate to be a pain, any way you can put all of Ross’s letters on one line, and all of Z’s on another side by side or over each other, as opposed to being all intermingled? I think my eyes are failing LOL, I need all the help I can get

Thanks Trav, and as you said, that S is quite impressive. If you really want to be impressed, turn your laptop sideways and view the letter comparison sideways, it looks even more like a match. I must try to get more writing, somehow.

Found your missing ‘m’ but you aint gonna like it.

Found your missing ‘m’ but you aint gonna like it.

What letter is that from?

"I will give you clue to help you with the mystry"

Or I’ll just post it lol.

This is too small -but here is an "m" from the bus bomb letter.
Its from the word "time" in the sentence "…when I do my thing, the rest of the time…"

Found your missing ‘m’ but you aint gonna like it.

Why wouldn’t we like it?

Anybody here in southern CA? I am wondering if somebody may be able to go into the RCC Library and look thru old books, maybe find some signs of who checked them out, or if they have any handwritten notes in back of them like where the checkout card would be. I know Ross worked in the library, not sure what he did, but I seem to recall he did something with the checkout process, maybe his writing is floating around there??