Morf I wonder if it would do any good to ask for FBI records on Ross’s brother Tim? We know that for sure he went to Canada to avoid the draft. There might be a clue to help us in Tim’s paperwork, if it exists.

Couldn’t hurt. I am not sure the FBI handles Travel records though. I went thru immigration

when i went to Canada, in the Summer of 1972 and again in ’73,
it was just for a week’s vacation. those were the 2 times i was detained.
i went a couple of other times but wasn’t stopped. the FBI is who had
the info on the stops. he could have went in and out without being stopped
and there would be no record of that.

Check this out. This guy posted these photos of a YMCA Hotel SEWING KIT!
Could this be what Ross used to make the hood with cross symbol?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/41606952@ … otostream/

I seriously doubt it. That sewing kit looks like it is the size of a matchbook or slightly larger and would be okay to mend something with, ie. sew on a button but doesn’t look like it would be adequate to sew the costume.

Interesting find Paul. Whomever Z was, he definitely knew how to sew, I doubt he asked any Women he knew to sew it for him.

Missing pieces of the puzzle

A few weeks ago, on a long shot, I wrote to Dave Toschi about Ross Sullivan, and I included the letter from Dave Peterson to him hoping he would remember Ross’s name, and a possible outcome regarding Ross being checked out and cleared. Dave never contacted me back,so, seems like a dead end. I didn’t really expect a response, but just wanted to take a shot.

Hello. I am a long-time reader but first-time contributor here.

Back in October 1969, I was a 10-year-old paperboy in Alameda, California. Being a paperboy, one couldn’t help but see the front page news stories day after day. In the days following the Paul Stine murder, the police sketches of the Zodiac suspect were printed in very large pictures on the front page. Around that same time, rumors were circulating that the Zodiac had been spotted in Alameda. It scared the sh!t out of all of us paperboys. On weekdays, we delivered the papers in the afternoon, but on weekends, we got up at 5am and delivered while it still dark outside. Every time I heard a noise or thought I saw something move, I couldn’t help but think about Zodiac. I never saw anyone who looked like the sketch, and eventually we stopped being so scared of running into him.

I’ve always been interested in the Zodiac case since then, and I’ve visited any websites i could find that are devoted to the case.

When I stumbled across this site, it was the first time I had ever heard of Ross Sullivan.

When I saw the picture of Ross Sullivan, the hair on my back literally stood up. He looks exactly like the sketch that I memorized from that newspaper back in 1969. It brought back the intense fear that I felt as a 10-year-old.

I agree with Morf that this guy needs to be investigated thoroughly until & unless he can be eliminated as a suspect.

A few things I’d like to add:
I am similar in size to Ross Sullivan. I am about 6’1-1/2" tall.
In my twenties, I weighed around 220 to 260 lbs. Today, I am 56 years old, and weight about 290 lbs.
I wear size 10-1/2 shoes, and my wrists are 7" in circumference.
Anyone who rules Ross Sullivan out solely based on his size vis-à-vis witness accounts and/or physical evidence is being foolish, IMHO.

One more thing:
Last year, I was a candidate for a job opening, and the prospective employer did a background check on me. I have no criminal record, so there was nothing to find there, but the report did list all of my previous addresses, going back decades.
So I wonder if such information might be available in a credit reporting company database somewhere?
Suppose you are trying to screen a potential tenant and a guy applies and gives his name & SSN as "Ross Sullivan" then you could order a thorough background/credit check. It wouldn’t be your fault if someone gave you a false name, and the guy turned out to have died in 1977! But you might see a previous address in SF, or Vallejo, or somwhere nearby…

Thanks for the input Paperboy,and welcome here.

I agree, Ross should not be ruled out via any one physical trait or feature. In 45+ years, he is the only Suspect ever linked to the RCC library where Zodiac’s writing was found. That’s pretty big. We will continue searching for info on Ross until he is ruled out as best we can.

Regarding your background info, addresses,etc, we do have tools to find a lot of that stuff,but have been unable to do so for Ross. Where you likely lived a stable life with steady work,and addresses, Ross seemed to have not, and was likely in and out of mental institutions, etc. He’s been pretty hard to track. We have heard from 2 people that knew him before the Zodiac murders, but nobody that knew him during the Zodiac murders. It has been a real roadblock for us

A few weeks ago, on a long shot, I wrote to Dave Toschi about Ross Sullivan, and I included the letter from Dave Peterson to him hoping he would remember Ross’s name, and a possible outcome regarding Ross being checked out and cleared. Dave never contacted me back,so, seems like a dead end. I didn’t really expect a response, but just wanted to take a shot.

it seems like you do everything right and keep running into brick walls!
why did you think he wouldn’t reply to your inquiry? it certainly seems like
a reasonable request to me from someone with some credibility….but sorry.
if Ross was the Zodiac, no wonder he was never caught. it certainly seems
he flew below the radar. he was very poor is the most likely explanation.
his obit lists him as dishwasher. my guess is he hadn’t even done that for awhile.
he could have been doing exactly that during the time of the Zodiac killings.
just crashing on couches and staying at the Y most of the time. which leads me
to thinking that a driver’s license may be your best bet. maybe your P.I. can get
those records? the other thing is Social Security records. they have to be out there.
you’ve probably thought of all of this anyway. good luck and good work.

whether or not ross was the zodiac, ross sullivan proves a good point about a potential avenue for the killer to have remain undetected. namely it’s hard to pin locations, dates, and times on someone who is fairly transient. it’s easy to find a poi who owns a car, a house, and has a job and investigate where they were on a certain date or time, talk to friends and neighbors, etc and establish the credibility of them as a suspect. it’s incredibly difficult to do the same thing for someone who didn’t have a lot of friends, didn’t own property, and who moved around a lot. even if they interviewed the actual killer as a poi, if his story was unable to be substantiated via the above means it leaves you at a dead end (which morf is finding to be true more and more by the day). what do you do with a dead end when you’re the police? most likely you say ‘this guy is interesting but i can’t prove anything so let’s move on to the next guy’.

it’s easy to look back on pois who have been ruled out and try to find something to say "hey maybe we missed this" but it’s really nearly impossible to look back on even a very interesting poi who wasn’t ruled out, and try to find the missing piece if it simply doesn’t exist. if ross was the zodiac and he moved around a lot, didn’t have a lot of friends, never established a steady employment pattern, and kept to himself then it’s no wonder no one has been able to definitively say more than that he certainly seems interesting.

Good points all

Ross has proven to be a tough nut to crack. His transient,or low level lifestyle with lack of established roots has made for tough sledding. The fact he died 38 years ago, has also hurt, most databases go back 30-35 years, tops. The People that knew him and have come forward(Allan Sylliphant & Mr Katz)provided just enough info to get us started, but nowhere near enough to finish. His chief Riverside accuser, Joann Bailey is dead. Dave Peterson who asked Toschi to look into him is dead. His Own Brother,who allegedly thought he was Zodiac is dead, and his surviving Brother,who could help clear his name, wants nothing to do with it. Privacy laws block any real chances of getting his mental health records, or driver’s license info…..I think that about sums it up

Regarding Ross’s SS history/Work history, only a surviving relative can obtain a deceased person’s SS abstract. That would show a person’s entire work history, names,locations,etc, of where they ever paid into SS. If his Brother was on board in helping us clear Ross, he could get this material.

Ross’s arrest in 1968, produced an arrest record, and possibly prints. The arrest report, at some point, was in the possession of Dave Peterson. Who knows where it is now. Old police reports, for crimes short of serious felonies, were routinely purged over the years. His prints may or may not be on file. Today, an arrest and prints, leads to them being in a natl database. Not so during the 1960’s. Did anybody ever send Ross’s info to the FBI for examination?? We don’t know, but they do not have a file on him, so I doubt it.

Other than that, things are just peachy on the Ross front Ross….the only Suspect that can be linked to the RCC Library, and looked just like the Z sketch. We know those two things, but not much more.

there must be a way to get those Social Security records……………..
they say money can’t buy love, and i’m not even sure of that,
but it would seem that perhaps it might lead you to those
records. unless someone unknown comes forward,
or someone that that you’ve contacted, decides to talk
to you after all, what’s next? the only other slight thing you
mentioned, was Mr. Peterson’s wife told you she might be
able to locate his records. i take it there’s no word on that either.
those S.S. records would tell you where and when he worked.
that might answer most of the remaining questions right there.
i wouldn’t be surprised if he was on S.S. disability by the time
he died. he had an actual address at that time, so he wasn’t transient.
his brother probably helped facilitate that. i just bet he was working
as a dishwasher in the San Francisco area during the Zodiac murders.
what if it showed him working at a restaurant in Vallejo?
case closed? as always, good work and good luck

Regarding Ross’s SS history/Work history, only a surviving relative can obtain a deceased person’s SS abstract. That would show a person’s entire work history, names,locations,etc, of where they ever paid into SS. If his Brother was on board in helping us clear Ross, he could get this material.

How close would the relationship need to be? Does either of his brothers have any children? Is it possible to find a cousin, nephew, etc, by looking for siblings of his parents?

If someone like that could be located – a cooperative direct blood relative, it could also potentially be helpful in a DNA match somewhere down the road.

As a previous poster hinted at, would Ross’ living brother request the SSN record for a monetary contribution? I’d be willing to chip in a few bucks..