Hartnell is not the best person to use for Zodiac weight estimates. He was on the ground and Zodiac was wearing a costume.

Ignore the Graysmith distortions trying to incriminate the 6’0", 250 pound Allen. Instead go to the actual eyewitness descriptions.

None of the eyewitness descriptions describe a man who is 6’0" – 6’2" tall and weighing 250 – 300 pounds.

Mageau said 5’8" – 5’9", 160 pounds, which is similar to what Kathleen Johns and the LB teenage girls said. The SFPD wanted poster also says 5’8".

Most importantly, trained observer SFPD Officer Fouke said the 250 pound Allen weighed about "100 pounds" more than the Zodiac he saw that night in SF. (Source: Interview of Fouke in the film "His Name Was Arthur Leigh Allen" attached to the DVD of the David Fincher film "Zodiac". Go to the 31 minute mark of the documentary.)

Thanks to Richard Grinell and Traveller1st, you can now click here to see just the relevant part of the documentary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJYvHJlt-gg

There definitely is a range of descriptions. And height, weight and other descriptions from citizens are notoriously unreliable. Also it can also be influenced by the amount of light, angle, time of day, distance and the questioning by the interviewer and how the interviewer characterizes the responses.

Kathleen Johns was close to Zodiac and said 160 lbs and about 30 years old. Mageau said 5’8"-5’9", 25 to 30 years old, 160 lbs. Ted K was 27 years old in 1969 and matches the height and weight estimates of Fouke, Johns and Mageau.

Overall, looking at the range of descriptions, it certainly would not be prudent to absolutely rule out someone who was 5’8" to 5’10" tall and weighed 150 – 180 pounds, as there are witnesses who put his height and weight in that area. Nor would I rule out someone who was 5’10" to 6’0" tall and weighed 180 to 200 pounds. For now I will leave it to others to decide if 6’0" tall, 250 pounds Allen or 6’2", 300 pound Sullivan should be ruled out on the basis of height and weight.

You must also consider that Ted, as the Unabomber, when going into public places took actions to disguise himself. These disguises mainly consisted around trying to make witnesses think he was heavier then he was in reality.

He would wear multiple shirts, put a towel inside of a zipped-up jacket to make it seem that he was much heavier and even put wax or gum in parts of his mouth and nose which also had the effect of making him look heavier.

Remember, as Araujo correctly states, it is fairly easy for a 160 pound man to introduce some basic disguise elements and appear to weigh 200 pounds, but it is almost impossible for a 200 pound man to disguise himself as a 160 pound man.

The question of the original poster was did Ted Kaczynski’s weight of 150 – 160 pounds totally eliminate him from being a valid Zodiac suspect? I think the answer is clearly that it does not.

IMO on the SFPD wanted poster, the sketch on the right looks like a man 35 – 45, while the sketch on the left depicts a man 25 – 35. The wanted poster says 5’8" for height.

The teenage girls at Lake Berryessa saw a suspicious man that may or may not have been the Zodiac. They describe a man who was between the ages of 25 and 35, and looked "average", "normal" and "attractive", with a body like a swimmer. That IMO does not describe Allen or Sullivan. It is a reasonable description for Ted K at that time.

Given the range of age descriptions, I don’t think you can conclusively rule out any good suspect on the basis of age, as long as the suspect was between 25 and 45. Allowing for human error and other factors, maybe we can safely say the acceptable range is 23 to 47, approximately.

I think we can safely rule out Dr. George Hodel, 62 years old at the time of the Stine murder. That may be the only named Zodiac suspect we could conclusively and safely rule out on the basis of age alone.

Other factors to consider (or not) include the dispatcher saying the voice sounded young, like a "student".

Aside from the young bearded student suspect in the Bates case, there is some other reasons to suppose the age of the Bates killer was younger rather than older. In and around the junior college library, a man in his thirties or forties would likely have stood out as noticeably older than most of the other people around him, , and thus different and memorable. A young man between the ages of say 18 to 29 would have blended in much better with the college crowd. If true that would put Z’s likely age in 1969 at 21 to 33.

One final thing. Something I have never seen discussed, on this or any other Z message board, is that the wanted poster put out for Zodiac, based in part on the description given by the trained and experienced observer SFPD Officer Fouke, gives a description for Zodiac as having "short brown hair "possibly with a red tint".

So the SF sketch and wanted poster, and Bennallack/Hakari suspect witness descriptions, mention a possible "red tint" to his hair. Ted is among the 3% of the US population that has a red tint to his hair.

I note the following conversation between Morf and myself because it touches on many of the issues raised here, and what Morf says I have heard other people say.

MORF13:what about the fact Ted K looked nothing like the Zodiac sketch??? Seeing is believing, and seeing a comparison of the two tells me all I need to know

I know you and others may not think much of Ted as a Z suspect, but I am honestly puzzled how you (and others) can say Ted "looked nothing like the Z sketch" I think you and many others are thinking only of how Ted looked when captured as the Unabomber in 1996. The grizzled face, long messy hair, bearded and shabby looking recluse. Because in 1969 he looked very much like the Zodiac sketch. Very short hair, neat appearance, clean shaven. His height and weight matched the description given by Officer Fouke and his partner which appears on the SFPD alert, also given by Mageau, Johns and the girls at Lake Berryessa – TK was approximately 5’8" – 5’9", 160 pounds. Ted K in 1969 generally matches the description of the three LB teen girls as "average", "normal", and "attractive", with a body like a swimmer.

Look at these photos – most who have think they match the sketch quite well. Certainly you cannot say Ted looked "nothing like" the sketch. In 1969 it was the height of the hippie movement in California. And the general fashion trend was for men to have longer hair and often some facial hair. Yet the Zodiac at SF in 1969 was not a hippie and did not even conform to the then dominant style of longer hair on men.

Similarities between the Zodiac SF sketch and Ted K include short, neatly trimmed hair, brown hair with a red tint, stacked on top, large forehead, angular cheekbones, overall "square" type face with no fat (as opposed to round face with fat), prominent jaw line and chin sticks out, "square jawed", similarity in slightly effeminate lips, ears similar, redness -puffiness-lines under eyes, no facial hair, smooth face, overall neat, clean normal appearance.

Ted K and SF police sketch without glasses:

Ted K, Berkeley, 1968 ——————————-SF Zodiac Police Sketch No Glasses 1969

Ted K………………..…………………SF Zodiac Sketch No Glasses

At the Stine shooting in San Francisco, Zodiac was reported to be wearing glasses, IIRC described as black regular glasses. Ted K did not need to wear glasses to see, but a neighbor states that he did regularly wear dark reading glasses (like Zodiac in SF 1969) to protect his eyes from the elements.

Neighbors Dave Waits and Chris Shor write in their book that:

"Ted had several pairs of glasses; all protective in nature, needed to keep wind, rain, dust, sleet or snow – depending on the season – out of his eyes. Sometimes when riding his bike he wore a full, dark, rimmed pair that looked like reading glasses, or corrective lenses, but he didn’t need glasses to see."

Of course Ted also wore sunglasses as the Unabomber, as a disguise method, to cover his eyes, cover part of his face and break up the face, as well as for protection against the elements.

So he could have very well been wearing glasses, if he was the Zodiac, the night that Paul Stine was killed, both as a method of disguise and a way to protect the eyes from the elements.

Whoever Zodiac was, I think it’s unlikely that he needed prescription glasses to see. Mageau reports that Zodiac was not wearing any glasses.

See Unabomber: The Secret Life of Ted Kaczynski, page 42.

This is the San Francisco Zodiac sketch (1969) and a picture of Ted Kaczynski at UC Berkeley (1968), with glasses added on.

I’m still amazed that so many people seem to consider Kaczynski as not being a convincing suspect in the Zodiac case, while offering the goofiest names as the answer to who was the Z

Morf: He’s completely the opposite kind of killer that Zodiac was. That’s why Ted is dismissed so easily. Different signatures & MO’s = different killers

AK Wilks: The VR, EAR & the ONS each had very different MO’s, signatures, victims and areas. Yet we now know they were all done by one man. Killers can evolve and change. The Zodiac started as an up close and personal killer with knives and handguns, but evolved into one who designed bombs, made bomb threats against mass transit and threatened sniper rifle attacks. Kaczynski designed bombs, made bomb threats against mass transit and carried out a sniper rifle attack at a mining site (wounding one man).

I am curious as to why you think Zodiac and Ted Kaczynski are the "opposite" kind of killers? First of all, unlike every other major named suspect, THEY ARE BOTH SERIAL KILLERS.

When I talked to detective, forensics man and key person to solve the EAR/ONS case Paul Holes many years ago, I told him that some police dismissed Ted as a major Z suspect because he only killed with bombs (that we know of for sure), though he did wound a man with a rifle. Paul told me that in his opinion sometimes police were "overly rigid" with their profiles. He said what was more important to him than weapon of choice was the desire to kill and actually killing strangers. He noted Ted had actually killed people, unlike every other credible suspect. He also said the overwhelming majority of the murders he and other police saw every day were people killing people they know. Husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, family members, neighbors, even competing criminal gangs, etc. The killer knows the victim. Very rare is one who kills perfect strangers, as both Zodiac and Ted did.

So both Zodiac and Ted are serial killers who kill people they never met. That is a rare group. Even rarer is that they both wrote to newspapers and police about their crimes. Paul Holes said that contrary to what is often shown in TV and movies, most serial killers do NOT write letters to newspapers or police. Bundy, Gacy, Dahmer and the vast majority of serial killers DO NOT write letters to media or police. Both Zodiac and the Unabomber wrote to newspapers, so he found it very interesting that they had that very rare trait in common.

Second, Zodiac DID shoot a man at a mining site with a rifle. He did torture and kill dogs with poison, knives and guns. He recorded a desire to kill people by "bomb or other means". He wrote fantasies about mutilating a women’s face with a knife. He wrote in his journal that he spent a year and made a one shot .22 pistol from wood and junk parts that he intended to use as a "homicide weapon". As a one shot untraceable weapon, it would best be used in situations up close and personal were the victim was immobile, such as being bound.

Hartnell is not the best person to use for Zodiac weight estimates. He was on the ground and Zodiac was wearing a costume.

Oh, he was on the ground? He also spent more time in the Zodiacs presence than any other victim, was the only victim given time to properly observe the Zodiac and didn’t have to do so through a car window either. Lets face it, he’s also the most credible witness, being both erudite and observant. He even had the presence of mind to ask if the gun was loaded for the sole purpose of writing a paper. By any estimation, he was exceptionally "switched on". He even presented counter arguments to his own observations, from his hospital bed. You couldn’t wish for a better witness.

It’s true we estimate height often in reference to our own, so I suppose being on the ground would be a disadvantage. But it seems he spent the lions share of the encounter standing, mere feet away.

The better arguments are: the killer he was wearing a costume, Hartnell himself is very tall and that it was a traumatic situation. Trying to argue that Hartnell didn’t get a good long look, that is a much harder argument to make.

Look, if there’s enough evidence against Ted, the descriptions don’t pose such a terrible obstacle, it may simply be a discrepancy that cannot yet be accounted for, but they’re no reason to discount the other evidence you’ve presented. I mean he did say he wore a disguise, which wouldn’t exactly be a difficult thing to do, I mean why shouldn’t he have worn a disguise? What’s to prevent it? Ted had special shoes to create fake prints, what’s to stop him going further?

Compare that to the studio photo where he is fully clothed. He looks like he could be 30lbs heavier.