On the right is the Van Dorn battle flag. Anyone know if it resembles anything Zodiac has included in a card or anything? Possible clue.

Maybe.

Moon / moon shaped eyes. 13 stars / 13 eyes.

I may have to check out this book. I originally just thought it was some sort of cash grab from some nut.

Hi-

As a long time researcher who has seen suspects come and go and feels that pretty much everyone has gone straight to the police or FBI, I find this guy’s behavior troubling. If he felt SFPD couldn’t handle the investigation objectively, there were three other jurisdictions he could have gone to. Did he?

Note: I don’t have the book but now someone says on Tom’s board that he did go to SFPD but feels they covered up the truth or didn’t compare the DNA. So I stand corrected about him not going to LE.

Mike

He definitely went to SFPD, but he feels there was a cover up because his Suspect’s ex-wife(who was a young teen when he married her)went on to marry an SFPD Homicide Detective. Not sure if he gave his Suspect’s info to Napa, Vallejo,etc

I may have to check out this book. I originally just thought it was some sort of cash grab from some nut.

Not sure what his reasons are for this book.

*He feels certain that his suspect is Zodiac, but rushed to judgment trying to connect the dots and failed to positively link his Father to zodiac

*He is just trying to make a buck, at the expense of his Father who abandoned him or mistreated him as a child, and as a bonus, his Father looked similar to the sketch

Hey, if number 2 is true, my biological Father, whom I have never met, lived in the SF bay area in the 60s and 70s, looked a bit like the sketch, and was in the military. Maybe I should get a publisher

Article from Howard, aka Bruce3.
http://theadvocate.com/home/9165392-125 … aton-rouge

That handprinting was compelling enough for me to purchase the Kindle version of the book. I looked through it to see more samples, but there aren’t any. You’re better served going to the author’s site.

I’ve skimmed several portions of the book, looking for something really solid that nobody’s mentioned yet. I couldn’t find anything. Lots of circumstantial tidbits, some are compelling, but little to make this individual stand out from other legitimate persons of interest. The "slave box" story is interesting, but we’ve seen "This is the Zodiac speaking" from the suspect known here as "Zode," and one of the police reports name a Vallejo man who (admittedly!) wanted to "collect slaves for the afterlife." Zynchronicities about in this case, and there a lot more effed-up people out there than most people realize.

Some parts are flat-out disappointing. The unsolved codes seem to trip everyone up, and this is no exception. None of the "solutions" are elegant; all require leaps of faith or implausible readings. The author is very comfortable making such leaps throughout the book. The police conspiracy/cover-up is particularly unconvincing, and demonstrates the author’s willingness to decide that a particular theory is actually a fact. I really wish the author didn’t rush to judgment so quickly. The substitution of his biological father’s name for Zodiac in the parts of the book dealing with the murders is infuriating and insulting.

I don’t think the author is purely (or even primarily) motivated by a desire for money and/or notoriety. I think Earl Van Best Jr. is a viable suspect. I would love to see more writing samples. The only other printing I’ve seen that matches Zodiac writing to this degree are from post-Yellow Book hoaxes. Of course, we don’t even know for sure if Earl Van Best Jr. filled out that marriage license. Perhaps Earl Best coincidentally met the real Zodiac, government registrar.

Tentative conclusion: The best of the "my daddy was Zodiac" cathartic exercises, but not the revelatory book we’re waiting for. I will perform a deep, careful reading to see if anything changes. I really had hopes for this one.

Hi-

If this guy had been arrested in 1962, weren’t his prints in the database when the Z prints were compared in 1969 and beyond? It is not the scar that is important, it is if the ridge pattern around the scar matches the prints.

Mike

Article from Howard, aka Bruce3.
http://theadvocate.com/home/9165392-125 … aton-rouge

I crack up every time I read the comments section of these type of articles..every kook comes out of the woodwork with a theory

On the right is the Van Dorn battle flag. Anyone know if it resembles anything Zodiac has included in a card or anything? Possible clue.

Maybe.

Moon / moon shaped eyes. 13 stars / 13 eyes.

Hmmm not a great clue, but not a bad one either. Thanks for posting that.

One of the comments from the advocate link article, "Happy Fathers Day".

The timing of this book seems a little off to me. The picture of this suspect seems a good likeness, although a weight issue exists clearly. However this book looks likely to sell millions and one has to question: if DNA could eventually rule in or rule out Earl Van Best Jr to the Zodiac crimes, it is fairly clear to me that this man is a wild goose chase. By the time we have any DNA comparisons, if at all, the book will have generated massive sales and if any DNA results prove negative, the book sales will flatline and start to gather dust. It is timely the book comes out before any tests and suggests almost certainly that the author himself is not truly confident in his beliefs, but by then it will be too late, your money is down the plughole. Any reasonable person with any consideration for the victims families would wait for any investigation into this suspect, including timelines and possibly DNA tests before pedaling this nonsense onto the bookshelves. If he is proved forensically correct, then write and release the book. Who in their right mind would spend all this time writing this book, then being disproved by DNA before publishing it: no one. It is therefore obvious what this exercise is all about, but we fall for it every time. There are good amateur investigators out there working hard for a resolution to this case, that for the most part go unheard, but as soon as nonsense like this hits the airwaves, like the Deborah Perez farce, there is one winner and many losers. The motto of this story is: if a thorough examination of a suspect has not taken place prior to a books release, do not buy it!

Hi-

My retired SFPD guy says that this man’s prints would have been available for comparison to the ones from the cab. This is what bothers me about this guy’s methodology. If I had someone’s prints, I’d find a way to get them compared. Instead, he writes a book making a point about a scar on his father’s finger but these prints were around in 1969 for comparison to the latents from the cab. Nobody got arrested.

Someone is going to say, "maybe the scar was not on his finger in 1962." Doesn’t matter. They look for the ridge comparison.

Mike

I not had time to read all this new breaking information. Tonight I will read more. Don’t want look dumber than I really am.

If not already been said. I guess this new information could be classified as The Best or could be A Bust.

Tell you what this case come very close to overtake Jack The Ripper in famous cases that hold peoples interest the most.

I just hope this Gary Stewart guy not inhaled too much Chemical Cleaning Supplies in his lifetime. At least appear he got a real not self published book contract! That more than be said about a very lot of the suspected I know the true story people.

We been burned, Well we have spotted out many very quickly full of crap people but there been so many people with tall tales even if the real person is found I wonder if we all could accept the fact it is true?

Just a statement not hopefully the start of WW3 on here. Good question to wonder about though.

Hi-

My retired SFPD guy says that this man’s prints would have been available for comparison to the ones from the cab. This is what bothers me about this guy’s methodology. If I had someone’s prints, I’d find a way to get them compared. Instead, he writes a book making a point about a scar on his father’s finger but these prints were around in 1969 for comparison to the latents from the cab. Nobody got arrested.

Someone is going to say, "maybe the scar was not on his finger in 1962." Doesn’t matter. They look for the ridge comparison.

Mike

You would think getting prints compared to Zodiac’s would be easy. Not so, I jumped thru hoops trying to get Owen’s prints compared against Zodiac’s. Finally, they were done and were inconclusive. I mailed them a letter and envelope handled by Owen, and to my fault, I did not store or handle them properly, even contaminating them with my own prints. They were not able to get prints they could use against Zodiac

Ok…on the flip-side.

Zodiac never used a capital "E" (Editor) like he did in the SLA letter, but that has been thought by many to be from Zodiac.

Is the one on the envelope more to your liking?

Also, bear in mind that the copy of the SLA card we are used to is heavily degraded through being reproduced. Here is the introduction line from the ‘usual’ version and beneath it the same line but taken from the less degraded FBI files. You can see just how badly the letter shapes have changed through copying. The ‘E’ that we are used to seeing practically looks like a fish hook compared to what it was originally. And …. the one we are used to may have been "touched up"