The Netflix mini-series about TK says so, but not sure if it’s actually the case.

Is Doug Oswell credited (or even mentioned) at any point in the third book?

Anyone out there?

Anyone out there?

I just searched the Kindle edition. This is the only mention of Oswell: “A few stalwart armchair detectives, such as Douglas Oswell, continued to seek connections between Kaczynski and Zodiac.” That’s it.

On the one hand, I applaud Hewitt for doing this book on evidence showing Kaczynski could be the Zodiac. There is some good information in it, a few new discoveries and some fresh arguments and evidence.

On the other hand, he does not give credit to those who came before him. I counted at least 10 instances of evidence, comparisons and/or arguments that were made by Doug Oswell that he presents in the book with no acknowledgement to Oswell. There were also a few instances of evidence or comparisons that I made that he presents with no mention of me. He also mentions the Caesar code analysis of the Zodiac codes, discovered and worked on by Kite and myself, without mentioning either of us. IIRC he even mentions Kaczynski as a suspect in the Tylenol Murders, without mentioning that this theory was developed by Oswell and myself.

So I applaud the good work and research done in the book, but it would have been nice had he even given a brief mention of credit to those who came before him. Had he asked me, I would have gladly given him permission to use, free of charge, any of my research or images on Kaczynski, codes, sketch – photo comparisons, Tylenol, etc., and I am sure Oswell would have done the same.

On the other hand, he does not give credit to those who came before him. I counted at least 10 instances of evidence, comparisons and/or arguments that were made by Doug Oswell that he presents in the book with no acknowledgement to Oswell. There were also a few instances of evidence or comparisons that I made that he presents with no mention of me. He also mentions the Caesar code analysis of the Zodiac codes, discovered and worked on by Kite and myself, without mentioning either of us. IIRC he even mentions Kaczynski as a suspect in the Tylenol Murders, without mentioning that this theory was developed by Oswell and myself.

That is extremely crappy.

I counted at least 10 instances of evidence, comparisons and/or arguments that were made by Doug Oswell that he presents in the book with no acknowledgement to Oswell. There were also a few instances of evidence or comparisons that I made that he presents with no mention of me. He also mentions the Caesar code analysis of the Zodiac codes, discovered and worked on by Kite and myself, without mentioning either of us.

So why is that blatant thief given a free pass? As far as I know, I am the only one who has called him out, and I don’t even have an interest in the Zodiac/Kaczynski angle.

I counted at least 10 instances of evidence, comparisons and/or arguments that were made by Doug Oswell that he presents in the book with no acknowledgement to Oswell. There were also a few instances of evidence or comparisons that I made that he presents with no mention of me. He also mentions the Caesar code analysis of the Zodiac codes, discovered and worked on by Kite and myself, without mentioning either of us.

So why is that blatant thief given a free pass? As far as I know, I am the only one who has called him out, and I don’t even have an interest in the Zodiac/Kaczynski angle.

Two weeks and no responses. Weird. Hewitt is a blatant thief, but I guess that’s ok these days? Sad state of affairs.

Let’s guess nobody reads his books.

Let’s guess nobody reads his books.

Perhaps, but now everyone is aware of what he did.

Hi,

It takes a combination of hubris and ignorance for a civilian to think they can profile a killer. I think there are too many profiling oriented shows on today and it gets to the point where people say, "Oh, I can do that."

I’m a pretty bright guy but the last thing I expected Richard Walter to say to me in 2004 was the Z was a person who knew the taste of power and killed to increase his feelings of power, not to compensate for feelings of powerlessness. Same for the reason he stopped killing. I assumed that Z got frightened after Fouke and Zelms drove past him and just decided that he had better stop before he got himself caught. Walter told me that it was the opposite: Z felt that he had outsmarted both Fouke and Pelissetti that night and got such a rush of power from defeating the police not once but twice that he could stop killing (because he was a "recreational" killer, who killed for "fun"–remember that Z actually said this in the 408?) and derive his power from his business endeavors and the letters. So the amateur had it backwards, as compared to someone who understand behavior much better than I do.

So when Hewitt says that Z was someone who felt powerless and killed to compensate for that, he is promoting the ignorance that has been polluting the case for fifty years. Same for when he says that Z got scared after the Fouke encounter and stopped killing for that reason. Hewitt knows nothing about profiling and yet had a book published on the topic? That would be like me writing a book on the finer points of plumbing, lol.

Mike

The question should be asked Mike is this: If a civilian profiles the Zodiac Killer and ultimately gets everything correct (if captured), is he still ignorant? And if an accredited profiler gets it horrendously wrong should he change profession and become a plumber?

I like criminal profiling as an accessory for narrowing the suspect field, but it remains extremely subjective – and as a result, an ‘accredited profiler’ is nothing more than an ‘accredited profiler with an opinion’ – because even accredited profilers have differences of opinions. An author of a book pushing a certain suspect, would never use an accredited profiler whose assessment of that killer didn’t match the story they were selling. Obviously, this is the concept of any suspect-driven book. If I wrote a book promoting Ted Kaczynski as the Zodiac Killer, the last thing I would do is use anything that tends away from my suspect, anymore than I would use an accredited profiler whose profile negated the concept I was pushing.

Richard Walter has certain opinions on the Fouke & Zelms affair, to which I agree. I think his assessment is a viable one. But believe me, if I’m promoting a book where I want Zodiac to have "got frightened after Fouke and Zelms drove past him and just decided that he had better stop before he got himself caught", he wouldn’t be a profiler who featured in my book. I’d just find one that agreed with me. This is the concept of lens based journalism and writing.

Those are all points to ponder. But for now, I’m stuck on the dude stealing the work of others for profit. And nobody (but me) being bothered by it, apparently.

Having not read either book on Ted Kaczynski, the question I would like to ask Tom, is how many of the points in Mark Hewitt’s third book are categorically proven to have been directly taken from Doug Oswell’s book? I ask this, because two people when writing a book on the Zodiac, whether suspect-driven or theory-driven, can arrive at the same conclusions without necessarily having copied one another. Can it be proven definitively that the material was plagiarized from one to another? I cannot comment on something I haven’t read and will unlikely ever read, so I will leave it for others to decide. I gather from your posting you have read both books in their entirety.

Hi,

Richard Walter has a TRACK RECORD of helping to solve scores of cold cases and is consulted by police departments across the country and even internationally, on cold cases. What is Hewitt’s track record in solving cold cases? Who values his opinion so much that they seek him out for consultation? Yours is a spurious argument. The statistical odds of Hewitt, the blind squirrel, having found the nut over Walter, are minuscule. Not impossible but much closer to impossible that probable.

You can make any argument you want about Hewitt getting lucky. Walter is one of the founders of the field of profiling, so I believe that it would be more appropriate if you give him the edge over Hewitt in getting it right. Walter is not a partisan and only supports my conclusions because I convinced him with EVIDENCE that I am right. He just put the profile out. I happen to have found a suspect who, unlike most (if not virtually all) of the others, fits it. That’s not my fault, either.

If you had a medical emergency, would you want the amateur "doctor," who reads WebMD to try to save your life or a seasoned doctor who had been around the block a few times? Sure, the amateur might just happen to get it right. But would you trust him to do so?

The other thing about Walter’s profile is that it takes, as I summarize in The Hunt for Zodiac, many of the traits that were individually assigned to Z over the years (aloofness, narcissism, the need to talk about his crimes) and places them all under the umbella of a "power-assertive" killer. So Walter’s profile is very descriptive, as opposed to calling Z a "powerless loser."

Kaczinski was a bomber, who killed people from afar. As a side note, when I first started out talking to Walter in 2004, the first thing he told me is that I could rest assured that TK was not the Zodiac killer.

Mike