Somebody sent this to me. It’s a comparison of Ross’s abbreviation of the word California. He writes CaL. Capitalizing the C & the L bot not the a in between. The Riverside Press Enterprise letter linked to Zodiac, is capitalized the same exact way. Any confirmed Z letters use this method or habit?

Wow this is very interesting. These are the things that make him look guilty when you put it together with other things we know about Ross (his drama background, writing dark/macabre poems, history with writing styles, etc.), that some people just blithely dismiss, but is very compelling to me.

After all, how many people capitalize first and third letters of a word like that? The same word? Exactly the same way. Like a habit or something.

Most days when I think of Ross I want so badly for there to be something that disqualifies him as a suspect, just so it’ll all be over. I try to leave this whole thing, telling myself it’s not that important. But I just can’t escape this gut feeling I have had about him ever since I read Gerald Katz’ post last January. The pieces, at least what we know of, seem to fit so well and tell a very interesting story.

My gut tells me that Ross killed Cheri and was probably the Zodiac Killer. I want so bad for someone to help us figure it out. At least give us enough information that we can go to the police and have them investigate him properly. There are some things we know of (medical records, people who know more than they want to share, arrest records, etc.), that we can’t get access to, that would likely shed more light on everything that make this whole thing even more frustrating.

Jeff-It’s very frustrating we can’t get more on Ross

yeah, Zodiac didn’t use a capital L in California, or really at any times mixed in with lowercase letters.

and most importantly the writer of the bates letters didn’t use it. I should think that would be the most important one for Ross, right?

and most importantly the writer of the bates letters didn’t use it. I should think that would be the most important one for Ross, right?

I thought we JUST established that he did.

On the top Ross "CaL." I bet, if it wasn’t for running up against the border, he would have written Calif.

and most importantly the writer of the bates letters didn’t use it. I should think that would be the most important one for Ross, right?

I thought we JUST established that he did.

On the top Ross "CaL." I bet, if it wasn’t for running up against the border, he would have written Calif.

Both Ross & the letter writer wrote CaL….that part alone is what we are talking about.The 3rd letter being capitalized

and most importantly the writer of the bates letters didn’t use it. I should think that would be the most important one for Ross, right?

I thought we JUST established that he did.

On the top Ross "CaL." I bet, if it wasn’t for running up against the border, he would have written Calif.

Both Ross & the letter writer wrote CaL….that part alone is what we are talking about.The 3rd letter being capitalized

I’m not a handwriting expert, but that’s not a common thing. The third letter of the same word capitalized? I don’t know why we’re not talking more about it? Maybe someone can find out how common it is to do something like that. For instance, if it’s a one in a million thing, that would point a big finger at Ross.

I’m not a handwriting expert, but that’s not a common thing. The third letter of the same word capitalized? I don’t know why we’re not talking more about it? Maybe someone can find out how common it is to do something like that. For instance, if it’s a one in a million thing, that would point a big finger at Ross.

I don’t think it’s a ‘one in a million’ thing unfortunately. Whilst there might not be an exact configuration match we do touch on the subject of upper vs lower case usage in this thread.

viewtopic.php?f=107&t=1539&start=70

Have a look through the rest of the samples too. Whilst not a comprehensive lexicon of styles it’s a reasonable selection illustrating different habits that people can have. I think there’s even a lowercase l written as L on one of them.

Paul, Morf, that one is on me. When I posted that I had only seen a very poor quality version that didn’t seem to show that, but then I saw a better one and I see what you are talking about.

But I don’t see it for the letters to Joseph and the RPD. Can you confirm it for those letters?

Paul, Morf, that one is on me. When I posted that I had only seen a very poor quality version that didn’t seem to show that, but then I saw a better one and I see what you are talking about.

But I don’t see it for the letters to Joseph and the RPD. Can you confirm it for those letters?

It’s the envelope for the letter to Press Enterprise that the example morf showed is on dk. It’s not on the envelopes to JB or RPD. I’m not actually sure he does it anywhere else except on the envelope to PE.

Here’s a graphic.

I’ve also included the envelope for the letter to the LA Times. Why? Well, because I think there’s possibly a ‘hint’ at styling similarities. It’s slight I’ll grant you that but to me it’s like a little reflection of a style that Zodiac sometimes employs. Call it what you will … his ‘curvy’ or ‘wavy’ style but he uses it on the envelope to the LA Times and it also creeps in on various letters in his opening salutation "This is the Zodiac …". Most notably on his Z’s.

I’m showing this because it can sometimes be difficult to decide if that type of L is actually uppercase or intended to be, for whatever reason. I think sometimes people employ it for lowercase. Their uppercase equivalent might have a longer or elongated base. With Zodiac he does appear to make a style distinction so that his lowercase L’s are single stroke l’s. The LA Times envelope shows this ‘curvy’ style of uppercase L and since that is (potentially) echoed in the L in the CaLifornia on the envelope to PE it could actually be an uppercase L.

I don’t know what the reason for it is but I would hesitate to call it a habit fwiw. Actually, I wouldn’t call it one because he doesn’t repeat it. He does do other things at random though and again with that word. "Claif" for example. So It’s possibly a ‘thing’ but not a writing habit as such. Also given that the writing on the envelope and letter to PE were heavily disguised it could be employed as part of that … randomness.

I don’t remember, did Ross normally use lowercase l’s in his printing, or do we only have those in his cursive?

If he did and this is the only example of him doing the mixed uppercase, I can buy that it was a habit… something about abbreviating the word made him switch up the style…and I could think it plausible that he was aware of that and choose to alter that as a disguise for the instances where it is absent.

But I feel confident that Zodiac’s normal writing was with lowercase l’s and that was not disguised, so if that mixed styling is more frequent for Ross I would be less inclined to consider it.

This is the only sample we have unfortunately. He seems consistent with that style of L and we are assuming that it’s an uppercase L. Problem is we don’t have anything else to compare it to ie normal print and not a form. For all we know those could be his lower case l’s. I suspect they aren’t but because there’s a mix of upper and lower case it’s hard to determine exactly what is going on. I mean is that all intended to be uppercase but without all the characters being uppercase versions?

I wouldn’t even guess at what his ‘normal’ upper and lower case print even looks like based off this example.

I am confident that those are Upper case letter L’s from Ross, and it’s odd, he seems to only capitalize his L’s and R’s in the middle of words. I don’t see Z doing that often

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I am confident that those are Upper case letter L’s from Ross, and it’s odd, he seems to only capitalize his L’s and R’s in the middle of words. I don’t see Z doing that often

It’s funny how Ross doesn’t write the capital R in "seracuse". Could not being sure of the spelling have made him subconsciously make a little r?

Does he utilize capital letters in the middle of words that he knows how to spell and is confident in?

Subconsciously keeps the r or l lowercase if he isn’t sure of the words spelling and isn’t confident?

Seems like it.

So did Zodiac ever show signs of this thinking/writing pattern?

I am confident that those are Upper case letter L’s from Ross, and it’s odd, he seems to only capitalize his L’s and R’s in the middle of words. I don’t see Z doing that often

It’s random. The "r" in "Seracuse" and "New York" are lower case, and the one in "New York" especially looks like the Z "checkmark" r. Meanwhile, all the "N", "A" and "H" are capitalized in the middle of words.

Since Ross actually studied and wrote a paper on the subject of disguising handwriting, I can picture him studying his own handwriting tendencies, and probably identifying some of the same things we’re looking at with this form. So, he makes a mental note that when he writes as Z, he will need to do something different, from his usual patterns. We also know, from the ciphers, that he could be pretty meticulous in printing well-formed letters when he wanted to. So he has the full range to work with – careless, sloppy, and apparently haphazard, to neat, meticulous, and precise (which, by the way, was probably his style when marking books in the RCC library.)

But, nevertheless, some of his letter formations, in some of his writings, do inevitably look like good matches. He can’t fully disguise every single letter, every single time.