If your ex husband went to high school with Betty Lou Jensen, that would make him a teenager when all the Z murders were committed. The witnesses all described Z as being considerably older than that.

It sounds like much of your case is built on the fact your ex lived near some of the crime scenes. But… a lot of people lived in Vallejo and the same could be said for all of them as well.

Marshall,

My ex was born in December 1951, and graduated in 1970 at the age of 18 1/2. Betty Lou was born on July 21, 1952, seven months later, and would have graduated in 1970 at the age of 17 if her life had not been cut short. He turned 17 in December of his junior year, just before Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday were killed on Lake Herman Road. Therefore, he would have been old enough to drive a car, etc.

There was a time when it was unthinkable that a young person could commit such a crime. But, today that is no longer the case. Many murders have been committed by young people.

At FBI headquarters in Quantico, there is a saying, “Age is the hardest to predict. Never exclude someone because of a discrepancy of age.”

In the Napa case alone, Bryan Hartnell had described his attacker’s age as being between 20 and 30. Cecelia had also guessed his age to be between 20 and 30. And, Officer Slaighter of the Napa Police Department had said that the man’s voice was “youthful” and had predicted that he was in his early 20s. Yet, one of the three girls sunbathing at Lake Berryessa gave his age as 40.

Sharon Pagaling Hagan said, “Zodiac was a heterosexual male who was attracted to age appropriate women.” (Betty Lou Jensen was 16 at the time of her death and it is believed that most of the time, a killer knows their victim.)

AK Wilks said, in regard to Ted Kaczynski, “His first confirmed Unabomber crime was in 1978, when he was 36 years old. Yet, we know from research that the most active and violent period for the majority of serial killers is from their late teens to late twenties. And we see that Kaczynski reports the motivation, desire and ability to kill at least as early as the summer of 1966.

Michael Mageau saw the Zodiac for a moment in the light from his car when he went back to the car to do something. At the scene of the crime, he described him as “Young … heavyset … in a light tan car.” (Zodiac, page 31.)

Bryan Hartnell said that the Zodiac had a voice, “like a student’s.” (Zodiac, page 67.) He also said, “It was a remarkably calm voice that came from beneath the hood, a voice that was not high or low-pitched, a monotone. The speaker sounded to Bryan to be between twenty and thirty years old.” (Zodiac, page 31.)

In Napa, when Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard were stabbed, detectives “located a witness who was having lunch at the general store at the time and who felt the man was acting highly unusual. He had even followed him out of the store and watched him get into a white automobile and drive away from the lake. “He matched the description,” I told them I recalled the man seen at the lake was thought to be much younger than Walker.” (Zodiac, page 190.)

After the Lake Berryessa stabbing, Officer Slaight received a call from the Zodiac. Later he said, “It sounded like the voice of a man in his early twenties …” (Zodiac, page 75.)

Teenage witnesses to the Paul Stine slaying described the killer as “a white male … around twenty-five or thirty years of age …” (Zodiac, page 95.)

According to Graysmith, Detective Toschi, of the San Francisco Police Department, sent Kathleen Johns, deceased, a series of photos of suspects. The ages were between twenty-eight to forty-five. (Zodiac, page 140. When Graysmith asked Kathleen about it later, she said, “Yeah, he sent them through the Stanislaus County Sheriff. But I felt that the suspect was younger and not in those pictures. If I saw him again, though, I would instantly recognize him.” (Zodiac, page 140.)

Robert Graysmith went on to say, “If it was the Zodiac that she had escaped from, then Kathleen had seen him up close and without a disguise longer than any of the victims.” (Zodiac, page 141.)

On November 11, 1970, a man from Vallejo driving a white Chevrolet was cited following a woman in Santa Rosa. Unfortunately, the ticket was purged from the records. But, she described him as young, twenty-three to twenty-four. (Zodiac, page 318.)

Other indications that the Zodiac was young include the fact that the gun that the Zodiac used on Lake Herman Road was possibly a .22 caliber J.C. Higgins Model 80. They were typically used by young boys and the front cover of the box displayed a drawing of a young boy shooting squirrels. I would also like to point out that, at that time, it was not required that someone be a certain age or have a permit to own a gun.

Also, according to Sharon Pagaling Hagan, “These crimes occurred on weekends or holidays. He was a weekend offender and that shows us that he was employed Monday through Friday. And, he was very busy during those days. He was not free to commit crimes. He was not free to hunt for victims. So, he lived a structured life Monday through Friday. Then, on weekends, he seems to have been adrift. I think he spent a great deal of time driving around and hunting and looking and fantasizing about what he was going to do.” This could also indicate a school schedule.

I know all about Collins and I think he was bs’ing quite a bit. I have seen that article in the newspaper before. He either lied or they were (very) wrong.

Why would Collins get such detailed info, then fail to see why it was important? The Fincher people called him out…and he got caught.

Check the P.D. reports…Collins practically quotes exactly the questions a different officer asked. He was either a lousy cop, or a liar…either way…

If your ex husband went to high school with Betty Lou Jensen, that would make him a teenager when all the Z murders were committed. The witnesses all described Z as being considerably older than that.

It sounds like much of your case is built on the fact your ex lived near some of the crime scenes. But… a lot of people lived in Vallejo and the same could be said for all of them as well.

Marshall,

The moment of realization came to me in 2007, eight years after we had divorced, after watching the Zodiac movie with Justin Chambers, seeing several of the places where the Zodiac had attacked his victims and realizing that those were the same places that he had taken me to. After watching the movie, I did some research on the internet. That’s when I realized that he was in the same grade as Betty Lou Jensen went to the same schools for 5 years and lived 1/2 mile away from her. But, during a three year engagement and 24 years of marriage, he had never mentioned knowing one of the Zodiac’s first victims. For the next six months, I did a lot of research about the Zodiac and found that my ex drove the same type of car, matched the Napa Composite Drawing, fit the descriptions given by many of the witnesses and that the Zodiac may have used his name in two of his coded messages. Still, the real clincher for me was when I compared his handwriting to that of the Zodiac. (I would be happy to share that here, but haven’t figured out how to accomplish that yet.)

Anyway, it is important to show criminal culpability by proving that someone was in the vicinity of a crime scene in order to prove opportunity. (The other two burdens of proof are motive and means: "The ability of a suspect to commit a crime is the means, the reason the suspect needed to commit the crime is the motive, and whether or not the suspect had the actual chance to perform the crime is the opportunity.")

As you said, all but the handwriting samples, are considered circumstantial. (Handwriting is solid evidence since no two people have the exact same handwriting.) Still, I only present this information in order for the police to begin an investigation to come up with some tangible proof. Perhaps they could interrogate him, give him a lie detector test, search his home or the home he lived in at the time. Fingerprints would be another piece of evidence, but the Zodiac didn’t leave any fingerprints behind at his first two crime scenes. And, according to his letters, he was very careful not to leave fingerprints at his subsequent crime scenes. I would be surprised if the hood, etc., is still around since, for one reason, the boy at Lake Berryessa who saw the Zodiac walking after the attack did not mention seeing him carrying a hood. Still, he could have been carrying it under his jacket, who knows? (In the mean time, my ex is still involved in my children and grandchildren’s lives!!)

If you combine other elements with opportunity, such as the physical description, the odds can begin to stack up against a particular suspect as in the following example:

Coming up with a basic profile of the Zodiac is important for several reasons. Using that information can narrow down the pool of possible suspects.

Evidently, the Zodiac lived in the Bay Area between December 20, 1968; when David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen were shot and killed on Lake Herman Road; and March 13, 1971; when he sent his sixteenth letter to the LA Times; which was post marked from Pleasanton. It is also likely that he was still in the Bay Area on January 29, 1974 when he sent the “Exorcist” letter; which was post marked from San Francisco; claiming that he had killed 37 people.

According to Dr. Kim Rossmo, Research Professor at the Department of Criminal Justice at Texas State University, by using Rigel, a geographical profiling system, he was able to determine that the Zodiac probably lived either in the North West area of Vallejo, near Mare Island, or in Benicia. Actually, the house where my ex lived with his family was right in the center of these three areas.

Dr. Rossmo went on to say that “twenty-six thousand people lived in Vallejo at that time of which thirteen-thousand were males. And of which only a certain portion of those would be of the correct age. And, only a certain percentage of those will be white … We actually have a pretty small subset. And, we start combining that with some of the personal and behavioral descriptions and then we work in the vehicle information. If the case was active today, it would not be too difficult to find this person.”

So, we know that there were 26-thousand people living in Vallejo at the time of the Zodiac slayings and that approximately half of those were males, or 13-thousand. Using national averages, we can assume that approximately 26% of those men were between the ages of 20 and 30, or 3380 men. Of those men, 23% were African American. And, since witnesses said that the Zodiac was a white male, we can rule them out as well. That leaves 2,603 men. Men in this age group were eligible for the draft during the Viet Nam war, which ended on January 27, 1973. It appears that 1 in 7 men who were between 20 and 30 had either been drafted or fled the country. (My ex was 4-F due to a previous neck injury and did not go to Viet Nam.) If we take 2,603 and divide it by 7, we get 371. That leaves 2232 men that fit the description. As I said before, the Zodiac was probably right handed and since 8-15% of people are left handed, we can subtract another 111 mean who were left handed leaving 2121. Now, out of 26,000 people living in Vallejo, we have already narrowed it down to 2121 possible suspects or 12.25% of the population of Vallejo that actually fit our criteria. In other words, we have already eliminated 87.75% of the people in Vallejo.

Next, Dr Rossmo said to work in the vehicle information. There were several reports of a white, 1963, Chevy, later known as a Nova, in the vicinity of several of the crime scenes. So, the next question is how many of those 2121 men drove a white Chevy? In 1960, there were approximately 180 million people in the United States. In 1963, for example, a year reported by one of the witnesses, the Chevy was a very popular car and 375,000 were manufactured. That would suggest that one out of every 480 people owned a Chevy. So, if you go back to the original population of Vallejo, 26-thousand, and divided that number by 480, we get approximately 54 people who drove a 1963 Nova in Vallejo. If one out of four Chevys sold that year was white, that number could theoretically be reduced to 14. If 12.25% of those people were white males, between the ages of 20 and 30 who were right handed, we can multiply 14 by 12.25 and come to only 1.1 men who fit the description of the Zodiac as given by witnesses.

Now, Dr. Rossmo said that we could further reduce that number by using some of the personal and behavioral descriptions. For example, if half of those men had light or red hair and the other half had dark, brown or black hair, we can divide the number by 2, which equals .55 men. We can further narrow down that number by the number of men that were 5’8” tall and wore a size 10-10 ½ show.

Lastly, according to Dr. Rossmo, we can even further reduce that number by the number of people who fit the psychological profile as well. (My ex was abandoned by his mother at the age of 2.) And, by using such forensic tolls as handwriting analysis, DNA or fingerprints, we can pretty much eliminate the element of doubt altogether!!

Collins never mentioned the description (he says) Cecelia gave him in his report. He admits to this on video. "It wasn’t important".

The composite came from the three girls.

Tahoe,

I was finally able to access the video with Collin’s interview. This is what was said:

Collins – Cecelia said, "I saw this guy. He was coming down the hillside and he seemed to stop and watch us. He was looking at us … Pretty soon, he was within 75′ away … he stepped behind a tree."
Interviewer – Why doesn’t anyone know that she had seen his face … why is that unknown?
Collins – I didn’t report it.
Interviewer – Why didn’t you report it?
Collins – You know, at the time, I didn’t think it was important.

He goes on to explain how Cecelia gave him a description of their assailant, but didn’t mention actually doing the drawing. I will have to look into that further.

If your ex husband went to high school with Betty Lou Jensen, that would make him a teenager when all the Z murders were committed. The witnesses all described Z as being considerably older than that.

It sounds like much of your case is built on the fact your ex lived near some of the crime scenes. But… a lot of people lived in Vallejo and the same could be said for all of them as well.

Marshall,

The moment of realization came to me in 2007, eight years after we had divorced, after watching the Zodiac movie with Justin Chambers, seeing several of the places where the Zodiac had attacked his victims and realizing that those were the same places that he had taken me to. After watching the movie, I did some research on the internet. That’s when I realized that he was in the same grade as Betty Lou Jensen went to the same schools for 5 years and lived 1/2 mile away from her. But, during a three year engagement and 24 years of marriage, he had never mentioned knowing one of the Zodiac’s first victims. For the next six months, I did a lot of research about the Zodiac and found that my ex drove the same type of car, matched the Napa Composite Drawing, fit the descriptions given by many of the witnesses and that the Zodiac may have used his name in two of his coded messages. Still, the real clincher for me was when I compared his handwriting to that of the Zodiac. (I would be happy to share that here, but haven’t figured out how to accomplish that yet.)

Anyway, it is important to show criminal culpability by proving that someone was in the vicinity of a crime scene in order to prove opportunity. (The other two burdens of proof are motive and means: "The ability of a suspect to commit a crime is the means, the reason the suspect needed to commit the crime is the motive, and whether or not the suspect had the actual chance to perform the crime is the opportunity.")

Being in the vicinity, having motive and means, does not come remotely close to proving guilt. A person can live in the same city with someone they don’t like, and they can have a handgun or knife. There’s vicinity, motive, and means.

It seems like these are the three things you’re trying to establish. But every other kid in Betty Lou’s school also knew her, and lived near her. Most of these kids probably had access to a car and a gun (their parents, or some other way to acquire them.) Not to mention BLJ’s neighbors, relatives, friends, the milkman, mailman, shopkeepers, the local barber, school employees, members of her church, and everyone else in the community.

But so far I think the main problem, besides lack of hard evidence tying him to any of the crimes, is that not a single witness described Zodiac as a 17 year old kid. Don Foulke, an experienced police officer, pegged Z’s age at twice that.

You can list a thousand reasons why your ex "could have been Zodiac." But it only takes one conclusive fact to make it impossible.

WHITE CHEVY NOVA
My Ex Owned a White, 1963, Chevy Nova:
In the late sixties and early seventies, my ex owned a white, Chevy Nova. He sold it before we met in 1972 and bought a green impala. But, later, he showed me a picture of it.

I have since learned that the Nova was called a Chevy II at that time. They were built to replace the Chevy Corvair.

Chevy produced five generations of Chevy II’s or Novas between 1962 and 1979 and 1985 to 1988. My ex’s looked like the 1962 – 1064 model. At that time, it probably had a Chevy 11 nameplate on it since the Nova nameplate wasn’t used until 1969.

The Chevy Nova looked very was a smaller version of the Chevrolet Impala. It looked very similar to the Impala, except it had square taillights and the Impala had round taillights.

The tire track for the 1963 Chevy 11 or Nova matches the track width of the car that had been parked behind Bryan Hartnell’s Karmann Ghia at Lake Berryessa the night that he and Cecelia Shepard were stabbed. The tire tracks found that night were 57 inches wide. (52” between the tires and half of 10” for the tires.) The tire tack for the 1963 Chevy 11 is 56.8”. That is a difference of 1/5th of an inch which could have been accounted for by the dirt that the car was parked in or the fact that the car that the Zodiac drove had two different sizes of tires.

My ex’s Chevy was white and most of the witnesses described the car that they saw at or near Zodiac crime scenes as being white. But, two of the sunbathers at Lake Berryessa described the car they saw as being ice blue. One girl also said that the car had a tinted rear windshield and that it could have been two tone. Recently, I asked a man at a car show, who knew a lot about Novas, if they had tinted rear windshields. He said that they used Lexan rear windshields for racing and that they came in three colors including blue. The girls also said that the car backed into the parking space in front of them, nearly hitting their bumper. So, I am assuming that they saw the blue windshield and that may be why they described the car as being blue when other people described it as being white.

The girls also said that the taillights were square. That would suggest that the car was a Nova rather than an Impala, which had a series of round taillights.

The Zodiac Drove a White, 60’s Chevy:
Two raccoon hunters noticed a white, four-door, hardtop ’60 Impala parked by the entrance to the Benicia Water Pumping Station on Lake Herman Road.

Bingo Wesher, a sheepherder at the Old Borges Ranch, also noticed a white Chevrolet Impala. (Zodiac, Robert Graysmith, pages 3-4.)

Officer G. Meyring (#298 Vallejo PD) came into the S/O. He stated to RO that Stan ___, 14 yrs … told him today that he and a friend of his, a student from Solano College, were going toward Blue Rock Springs on Columbus Parkway and a ’63 Chevrolet Impala turned off Lake Herman Road onto Columbus Parkway heading in the direction of Blue Rock Springs ___. 10:30pm Friday 12/20/68. (ZodiacKiller.com, Police Report, page 52.)

According to the Supplemental Investigation Report, Solano County Sheriff’s Office, Fairfield, California, a white, 4-door, hardtop, ’59 or ’60 Impala was parked near the crime scene.

“Description of a man following Darlene Ferrin: American made sedan, white with a large windshield.” (Zodiac, Robert Graysmith, page 318.)

Michael Mageau was interviewed shortly after the shooting by Dave Peterson. During the interview, he described his assailant’s car. “It could have been a 1958 or 1959 Falcon.” (Vallejo Times Herald, 8-19-69.) But, according to Graysmith, “The car was changed to light tan Chevy.” (Zodiac, Robert Graysmith, page 318.) (The Chevy 11 or Nova was designed to compete with the Ford falcon and they were very similar. Although, the Ford Falcon had round tail lights and the Nova had square taillights and the three girls described the car as having square taillights.)

Earlier, on the same day that Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard were shot at Lake Berryessa, three women reported seeing a light colored Chevrolet at 2:50 pm at the A&W. “… another car, driven by a lone man, pulled in beside them and then backed up so that his rear bumper was even with theirs. The man sat there with his head down as if he were reading something. The women got the feeling he wasn’t. The car was a silver or ice blue ’66 Chevrolet two-door sedan with California plates.” (Zodiac, Robert Graysmith, page 63.)

In Napa, when Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard were stabbed, detectives “located a witness who was having lunch at the general store at the time and who felt the man was acting highly unusual. He had even followed him out of the store and watched him get into a white automobile and drive away from the lake. “He matched the description, I told them I recalled the man seen at the lake was thought to be much younger than Walker.” (Zodiac, Robert Graysmith, page 190.)

“In Santa Rosa, a man frightened three separate women motorists in an identical manner between 3:00 and 4:00 pm. At 5:10, police stopped a man who’s auto and license number matched their descriptions. He was identified as a Vallejo resident in a 1962-64 white Chevrolet.” The man, “about twenty-three,” was stopped on Fourth Street after he had followed a woman right into the post office parking lot. He claimed that he was lost and looking for a way out of town.” (Zodiac, Robert Graysmith, page 134.)

On March 17, 1970, a Vallejo woman going to Travis Air Force Base was followed by a man driving a white Chevrolet. (Zodiac, Robert Graysmith, pages 3-4.)

On March 22, 1970, Kathleen Johns, who was pregnant at the time, and her baby, were picked up by a man driving a white car. (Zodiac, Robert Graysmith, page 3.)

On November 11, 1970, a man from Vallejo driving a white Chevrolet was cited following a woman in Santa Rosa. (Unfortunately, the ticket was purged from the records.) She described him as young, twenty-three to twenty-four. (Zodiac, Robert Graysmith, page 318.)

“On April 7, 1972, Isobel Watson, a thirty-three-year-old legal secretary in San Francisco, got off the bus in Tamalpias and began walking up Pine Hill. Out of nowhere, a white Chevy swerved at her. The car stopped and the driver leapt out, explaining: I’m terribly sorry. Please let me drive you home.” The driver was in his early forties, about 5’9” and wore heavy black–rimmed glasses.”

“Ms. Watson replied: ‘No thanks.’ The man repeated his request in a very concerned voice and was again refused. At this time, the man flew into a rage and, pulling a short-bladed knife, began to stab at her back. She let out a series of screams. As a result, lights went on in all the nearby houses. The man raced back to his car and sped off. Watson was rushed to the hospital and treated for her wounds. Ken Narlow of the Napa P.D. believed that there was a good chance that the attacker was the Zodiac, being that he fit all of the previous Zodiac descriptions to a tee and that the attack took place on the weekend.” (Zodiac, Robert Graysmith, pages 181-182.)

“Fifteen minutes before the killings on Lake Herman Road, and throughout the evening, a white Chevrolet sedan was seen parked exactly where the murderer’s car was parked. If the killer of Faraday and Jensen drove a white Chevrolet and the man asking about Darlene drove a white Chevrolet, then chances were that they all belonged to the same man, Zodiac.” (Zodiac, Robert Graysmith, page 294.)

The January 7, 1985 People are Talking paper concerning an episode about the Zodiac mentions a 61 – 63 white, Chevrolet Impala.” (Hunting the Zodiac, John Mikulenka.)

The following account is from a Mr. W. Crow who was driving the car that was chased on Lake Herman Road the night Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday were killed, December 20,1968.

“I received your [Tom Voigt] e-mail concerning the Zodiac and, yes, I was the driver of the sports car that night in December 1968. I was born and raised in Vallejo, and I was living with my parents at that time. My former girlfriend who had moved to San Francisco was visiting her parents in Napa and had just purchased a sports car. She dropped by our home in Vallejo and since I was going to get up early to go hunting with my father the next morning, instead of going out, we decided to go for a ride and catch up. She asked if I wanted to driver her sports car and I went down Lake Herman Road to see how the car handled. There is a place where a private road intersects the main road. There is a gate across the private road maybe thirty yards down. It provided a spot known to local teens as a place to “park” and I will leave it at that. This night, I was in a small, two-seater and “parking” was not in the picture. I had just gone through the gears and pulled into the private road area and turned the car around with the front pointing to and a few feet from the main road. The engine was running and the lights were on. I had never driven a car that had toggle switches on the dashboard. As my former girlfriend was explaining to me what each one controlled, I noticed a car coming down the road from the direction of Benicia. The car passed in front of me then I noticed that it came to a stop and its taillights told me it was baking up. Common sense suggested to me to put the sports car in gear and leave. I pulled out and started driving toward Benicia. The other car was behind me. The car hit its bright lights and then did bright off, bright on, bright off, etc. I went through a few young testosterone moments where I was going “to pull over and kick that guy’s ___.” My former girlfriend started getting upset and I sped up. The car behind me also sped up, and at one point as I was looking over my shoulder the car behind me came up on my side with its right front fender near the driver’s rear quarter panel and appeared to be moving toward making contact. I shifted to a lower gear and hit the gas. There is a fork in the road where one continues toward Benicia and the other more towards the freeway toward Vallejo. The other car was clearly chasing me and I waited until the last moment and then turned off. The larger car behind me could not make the turn. “I went down approximately two hundred yards and stopped in the middle of the road. The other car had stopped shortly after the turn-off. Each of us sat there in the road. Again, youthfully stupid, I yelled about kicking his ___. After some moments, the other car turned around in the roadway and went back down the road from which we had come. I kept making macho statements, but not totally without some sense about me, I drove home. I did not see the car again. I could not see the passenger seat, but the driver was a man with short hair and glasses. I did not see his specific facial features. The two from Benicia were killed exactly at the same place where I was parked that night when we first encountered the other car. Therefore, in my opinion, he either randomly came up to that spot or was from the area and knew of it. Either that next morning or the day after there was a story in our local newspaper the Times Herald. I believe there was a picture showing where the car of the couple had been parked. For sure there was a description. I put my shotgun in the car, as if he would really still be there and drove back out Lake Herman Road to confirm the location. I came home and told my mother that I had been where the couple had been shot shortly before and of the car that had chased me. She suggested that I report it and I called the Vallejo Police Department. They explained that they did not have jurisdiction and referred me to Solano County Sheriff. I was interviewed and gave my account. I have never seen a report, nor been asked any further questions. A few years ago, a sheriff I knew who was reviewing the Zodiac records asked me if I was the W. Crow who made a report. I told him it was me and asked him if he could get me a copy of the report. I am still waiting.

“There is a part of your e-mail that I find extremely intriguing. I never told the sheriff who interviewed me that the car I encountered was a Valiant. As I recall, as I was attempting to describe the car, the sheriff came up with a “Valiant.” In the years that have passed, when I have shared the events of that night, I have described the car as a four-door light-colored Chevy. Until your e-mail I have never known that two hunters came upon a white Chevy or that any reference to a Chevy existed in the investigation. I know this does not support the theory of two cars. But it is important to me that my account be accurate.

“I can assure you that the events of that night remain vivid in my mind. I still cannot drive down Lake Herman Road without goose bumps. I feel very fortunate.

Hi MadamEx,

I certainly don’t want to pile on. You obviously believe your ex is responsible for the Zodiac murders, and like everyone else in the forum are entitled to your opinion. I do have a couple questions, just to satisfy my own curiosity. I believe Z killed Cheri Jo Bates in Riverside in 1966. An authenticated letter sent to the local paper contained details only the killer would know. Now if your husband was Zodiac and responsible for the CJB murder, that would make him 14 at the time of the Riverside attack. That to me seems implausible.

From what I read, your ex had a similar car, lived in the same geographic area, and matched the composite sketch. Maybe similar handwriting, too? What can you tell us about his behavior? The things you cite are circumstantial. What evidence do you have, what in his behavior would lead you to conclude he is the Zodiac?

I would add that many murders listed in the Yellow Book occurred after 1972. And I believe your post indicates you met your ex in 1972. Did you see any red flags then?

Hi MadamEx,

I certainly don’t want to pile on. You obviously believe your ex is responsible for the Zodiac murders, and like everyone else in the forum are entitled to your opinion. I do have a couple questions, just to satisfy my own curiosity. I believe Z killed Cheri Jo Bates in Riverside in 1966. An authenticated letter sent to the local paper contained details only the killer would know. Now if your husband was Zodiac and responsible for the CJB murder, that would make him 14 at the time of the Riverside attack. That to me seems implausible.

From what I read, your ex had a similar car, lived in the same geographic area, and matched the composite sketch. Maybe similar handwriting, too? What can you tell us about his behavior? The things you cite are circumstantial. What evidence do you have, what in his behavior would lead you to conclude he is the Zodiac?

DoctorS,

Thank you for your questions. I don’t believe that the Zodiac, or my ex, was responsible for the Cheri Jo Bates murder. And, yes, that would have made him 14 at the time. One reason is that he did not list the date of her murder on Bryan Hartnell’s car. Another is that he shot David Faraday once, Betty Lou Jensen 5 times, etc. Yet, Cheri Jo Bates was nearly decapitated!! That would show a de-escalation. Also, if my memory serves me correctly, a watch was found at the crime scene that would have fit a very small man, yet the Zodiac was always described as being over weight. (My ex was very stocky.) I believe that the evidence points to Bruce Davis, but the police had him on the Gary Hinman and Donald Shea murders, so didn’t charge him with CJB’s. I am still working on presenting my "case" against him here, but he also matched the Napa Composite Drawing and descriptions given by witnesses and victims. Also, the Zodiac used my ex’s name three times in his coded messages. Lastly, my ex’s handwriting matches the Zodiac’s. I found many matching letters and numbers. He also used a cursive d, a check mark r, a candy cane f and a three stroke k, all letters that the Zodiac was known for. (I will share his handwriting samples here once I am able. I can also share information about his coded name privately if you like.) I gave my handwriting comparison to Bradley DeWalt of the Solano County Sheriff’s Office shortly after I began to suspect that my ex was the Z. He gave it to two profilers and they both agreed that he was possibly the Z. But, as he told me later, they were too busy to investigate it any further. As I mentioned before, I do plan on writing a book about what life was like being married to a serial killer. (Very long story!!) Basically, he does fit the basic criteria for a sociopath or psychopath. His mother was a single mother who abandoned him when he was two. Later, she got married, got him back and told him that his stepfather was his real father. A few years later, he met his real father and found out that he had been lied to. (All in my book.) He was so charming that no one would have ever suspected that he wasn’t the best father in the world. In reality, he was seldom home and left the raising of the children to me, yet he took all the credit. (My children are all wonderful people!!) In the end, I believe that he only used me and my sons as a facade. (He is still doing that today.) We went to church every Sunday and he was even a church deacon. I know that many people have gone through much worse situations than I have, but I have always compared it to a living hell. I hated to wake up in the mornings to face another day being married to him. He constantly blamed me for things and turned people against me. He always tried to gain people’s sympathy. He spent a lot of money and left very little for us to live on. At one time, he even tried to take my children away from me. When they were finally old enough, I sent them all to college. (I worked in housekeeping to be able to afford it.) Then, I tried to get out myself. At that time, he stalked me constantly, got me fired from my job and tried to kill me twice. I barely got out with my life. In general, he was a pathological liar, was involved with drugs, drank and gambled. Well, that is only the tip of the iceberg, as they say, but I hope it gives you a general idea of what he was like.

I would add that many murders listed in the Yellow Book occurred after 1972. And I believe your post indicates you met your ex in 1972. Did you see any red flags then?

DoctorS,

Yes, you are right. We met in August of 1972, right after I graduated from high school. We were married three years later in 1975. During that time, the Zodiac killed victims 23 through 37, mostly in the Santa Rosa area. He also wrote the Exorcist letter on January 29, 1974, six months before we were married, claiming 37 victims. (After we met, he did say that he wanted to wait three years before we got married.) During the time that we were dating, there were many times that he said that he would come over, but never showed. I never knew where he was during those times. When I finally realized that he could have been the Zodiac, 2005, after seeing the Zodiac movie with Justin Chambers, I was shocked to realize that I hadn’t seen any signs. I often wondered why he didn’t kill me as well. When he did try, he tried to make it look like a "fake accident." Several years later, I began to wonder why I believed that he had actually stopped killing people. At that time, I looked up unsolved murders in the areas between where we lived and his two offices and found six. I later found that one had been solved. One, a nurse, was only a couple of blocks from his office. I don’t remember the details of the case off hand, but it was very similar to one of the Zodiac attacks.

In the following, I have compared my ex’s description to the Zodiac’s description as given by witnesses:

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION

Nick’s Description:
In 1972, when I met Nick, not his real name, he weighed approximately 165 pounds. He is five-feet eight-inches tall, stocky (short legs and long, thick body) and has always been a little overweight without being fat. His hair is dark brown, but almost looks black. It is very thick and straight with a little wave to it. At that time, he wore his hair short on the sides and combed back on top in a pompadour. (He still wears his hair in the same style, but it is not as thick.) He also has dark, brown eyes and has never had much facial hair. During the time that I knew him, he typically wore dark, pleated, pants with a dark, waste-length windbreaker with elastic waist and cuffs. I have seen recent pictures of him and he still dresses the same way.

Wing Walker Shoes:
Nick wears a size 10 or 10 ½ shoe. His step-father was a welder at Mare Island and built nuclear submarines. As an employee at Mare Island, he would have had Exchange privileges at Travis Air Force Base where they were sold. Wing Walker shoes were used by aircraft mechanics when they walked on airplane wings. They were also used by employees at Mare Island when working on nuclear submarines.

The Hood:
The following was taken from an article in the Napa Register:

“She [Cecelia] said he had the hood on, he put the hood on, and there weren’t eye holes,” recalled Collins in a recent interview. “Instead it was like a welder’s mask, an opening in the front of the mask itself.”

Since Nick’s dad became a welder in the early fifties, it is likely that he owned a welder’s hood like the one that Cecelia described. (Today, welders wear helmets.)

The Code:
Prior to working at Mare Island, Nick’s step-father was a radioman in the Korean War. And, it is said that some of the codes that the Zodiac used were used in World War II and Korea.

The Zodiac Symbol:
Bryan Hartnell told investigators that the Zodiac wore a costume, on the front of which was a circle with a cross through it, identical to the drawings Zodiac had included in some of his letters.

The circle with a cross is a symbol that was used as the sign of the Zodiac by the occult. Apparently, both the Zodiac and Darlene Ferrin were involved in the San Francisco occult and possibly the Vallejo occult, known as the Ott Group. I told two D.A.R.E offers about Nick’s strange behavior, staying out until 4:00 in the morning, possible drug use, etc., and they both thought that he was probably involved in the Vallejo occult.

The White Belt at Lake Berryessa:
In 1968, Nick was injured in an accident and dislocated his neck. He wore a body cast that went from his neck to his waist. (He told me that he could walk in it and even partied and danced in it shortly after the accident.) This would have given him a more pronounced, stocky appearance under his jacket. The injury would also explain what several witnesses described as a lumbering walk.

Also, the three sunbathers at Lake Berryessa reported that the Zodiac had a t-shirt hanging out the back. One girl said that it looked like a belt. This may have been the bottom of his cast.

Zodiac’s Description:
(The following quotations were taken from Zodiac by Robert Graysmith.)

February 26, 1969, Darlene Ferrin’s babysitter reported seeing a man with dark hair sitting in a white sedan in front of Darlene’s home. (Page 14)

On February 27, 1969, when Darlene dropped by Terry’s Restaurant, she was told a stocky man had been asking questions about her. (Page 15)

May 24, 1969, Darlene’s sister, Linda, reported seeing a man who was “overweight” and “five-feet eight-inches tall or so,” at Darlene’s painting party. (Page 27)

Mike Mageau described the killer as being “beefy, heavyset without being blubbery fat, perhaps 195 to 200 pounds.” Mike estimated that he was one head higher than Darlene’s Corvair, about five-feet eight-inches tall. His pants had pleats but Mike could see that he had a slight potbelly.

Darlene’s friends Bobbie, Evelyn and Lois all recalled one particular individual, a short, stocky man with black hair who kept trying to date Darlene.

According to Mike Mageau, the attacker weighed about 160 pounds and combed his hair up in kind of a pompadour and then back. (Page 39)

According to the landlady, “Paul” was kind of plump with dark, straight hair.” (Page 44)

According to an eye witness at Lake Berryessa, the killer “was a white adult about five-feet ten-inches tall, with a heavy build, wearing dark trousers and long-sleeved dark shirt with red coloring.” He was also wearing a “blue windbreaker jacket.” (Page 68) It is possible that the red in his shirt could have been blood.)

Bryan Hartnell said of the voice, “It was like a, a student’s.” (Nick was 17 at the time.)

Also, he wore a lightweight, blue-black windbreaker. He also wore baggy, pleated slacks. Bryan also judged him to be between five-foot ten-inches and six-foot one or two inches. (Bryan could have been a bad judge of height since he was so tall.) (Page 68)

Hartnell later said that the guy had dark hair and a greasy forehead. (Page 77)

Teenage witnesses described Paul Stine’s killer as wearing a dark jacket, crew-cut hair, bug guy, kinda stocky, husky. (Page 91)

They also said, “Looked like he was about five-foot eight-inches tall. He was wearing a dark navy-blue or black parka-type jacket and dark trousers. (Page 95)

Kathleen Johns described her pursuer as being clean-shaven and neatly dressed. (Page 138)

She also described him as wearing a dark blue –black nylon windbreaker over black woolen bell-bottom pants. She went on to say that “His nose was not especially small.” And that “his jaw wasn’t weak. He wasn’t a weak type of person and he didn’t have a heavy forehead. His hair was brown, worn like a crew cut … He wasn’t real big, weighed about 166.”

The following quotes were taken from Zodiac Unmasked by Robert Graysmith:

“He was heavy build, approximately five-foot, eight-inches tall. Short, brown hair …” (Page 21)

“The suspect that was observed by officer Fouke was a WMA … five-foot, ten-inches, 180 … pounds. Medium heavy build – Barrel chested – medium complexion … Crew cut … dressed in dark blue waist length zipper type jacket (Navy or royal blue). Elastic cuffs and waistband zipped part way up. Brown wool pants pleated type baggy in rear … May have been wearing low cut shoes.” (Page 22)

“Zodiac presumably sported a healthy head of straight brown hair beneath his hood. ‘I remember a kind of greasy forehead …’ the surviving Berryessa victim told me later. He thought the perpetrator had dark brown hair – a lock had shown through dark glasses covering narrow eyelets.” (Page 32)

“I don’t know how tall Zodiac was, maybe five-foot eight … somewhere in there.” (Page 33)

“… 10 ½ regular shoe.” (Page 35)

“’The shoes Zodiac wore at Lake Berryessa in September 1969 were sold through base exchanges only.” (Nick’s father worked at Mare Island and had Exchange privileges.) (Page 127)

After I realized that Nick could actually be a serial killer, I wanted to find out whether or not he fit the psychological profile. The following description of a Psychopath was taken from Wikipedia and I feel that it fits Nick on every point.

The prototypical psychopath has deficits or deviances in several areas:

Interpersonal relationships, emotion, and self-control. Psychopaths lack a sense of guilt or remorse for any harm they may have caused others, instead rationalizing the behavior, blaming someone else, or denying it outright. Psychopaths also lack empathy toward others in general, resulting in tactlessness, insensitivity, and contemptuousness. All of this belies their tendency to make a good, likable first impression. Psychopaths have a superficial charm about them, enabled by their low self-consciousness, a willingness to say anything without concern for accuracy or truth. This extends into their pathological lying and willingness to con and manipulate others for personal gain or amusement. The prototypical psychopath’s emotions are described as a shallow affect, meaning their overall way of relating is characterized by mere display of friendliness and other emotions for personal gain; the displayed emotion need not correlate with felt emotion, in other words, shallow affect also describes the psychopath’s tendency for genuine emotion to be short lived and egocentric with an overall cold demeanor, their behavior is impulsive and irresponsible, often failing to keep a job or defaulting on debts.

Since psychopaths cause harm through their actions, it is assumed that they are not emotionally attached to the people they harm; however, according to the PCL-R checklist, psychopaths are also careless in the way they treat themselves. They frequently fail to alter their behavior in a way that would prevent them from enduring future discomfort. Dr. Joseph Newman contends that the behavior displayed by psychopaths is the result of “an inability to process contextual cures.”

It is thought that any emotions which the primary psychopath exhibits are the fruits of watching and mimicking other people emotions. They show poor impulse control and low tolerance for frustration and aggression. They have no empathy, remorse, anxiety or guilt in relation to their behavior. In short, they truly are devoid of conscience. However, they understand that society expects them to behave in a conscientious manner, and therefore they mimic this behavior when it suits their needs.

Most studies of psychopaths have taken place among prison populations. This remains a limitation on its applicability to a general population but that has not prevented fiction writers from popularizing psychopaths in the movies.

Cleckley thus defined psychopath:
1. Superficial charm and above average intelligence.
2. Absence of delusions and other signs of irrational thinking.
3. Absence of nervousness or neurotic manifestations.
4. Unreliability.
5. Untruthfulness and insincerity.
6. Lack of remorse or shame.
7. Antisocial behavior without apparent compunction.
8. Poor judgment and failure to learn from experience
9. Pathological egocentricity and incapacity to love.
10. General poverty in major affective reactions.
11. Specific lose of insight.
12. Unresponsiveness in general interpersonal relations.
13. Fantastic and uninviting behavior with drink and sometimes without.
14. Suicide threats rarely carried out.
15. Sex life impersonal, trivial and poorly integrated
16. Failure to follow any life plan.

It has been shown that punishment and behavior modification techniques do not improve the behavior of a psychopath. They have been regularly observed to respond to both by becoming more cunning and hiding their behavior better. It has been suggested that traditional therapeutic approaches actually make them, if not worse, then far more adept at manipulating others and concealing their behavior. They are generally considered to be not only incurable but also untreatable.

Psychopaths also have a markedly distorted sense of the potential consequences of their actions, not only for others, but also for themselves. They do not, for example, deeply recognize the risk of being caught, disbelieved or injured as a result of their behavior.

Childhood Precursors:
Children showing strong psychopathic precursors often appear immune to punishment; nothing seems to modify their undesirable behavior. Consequently parents usually give up and the behavior worsens.

The following childhood indicators are to be interpreted not as to the type of behavior, but as to its relentless and unvarying occurrence. Not all must be present concurrently, but at least a number of them need to be present over a period of years:

1. An extended period of bedwetting past the preschool years that is not due to any medical problem.
2. Cruelty to animals beyond an angry outburst.
3. Fire setting and other vandalism. Not to be confused with playing with matches, which is not uncommon for preschoolers. This is the deliberate setting of destructive fires with utter disregard for the property and lives of others.
4. Lying, often without discernible objectives, extending beyond a child’s normal impulse to not be punished. Lies are so extensive that it is often impossible to know lies from truth.
5. Theft and Truancy.
6. Aggression to peers, not necessarily physical, which can include getting others into trouble or a campaign of psychological torment.
The three indicators – bedwetting, cruelty to animals and fire starting – known as the MacDonald triad, were first described by J.M. MacDonald as indicators of psychopathy. Through the relevance of these indicators to serial murder etiology has since been called into question, they are considered relevant to psychopathy.

HANDWRITING COMPARISON

Handprinting was once considered the most positive method of
Identification or Elimination of Suspects.

In order to compare Nick’s handwriting to the Zodiac’s, I took handwriting samples from each of them. As I found corresponding upper and lowercase letters, I cut them out, enlarged them and placed them side by side in a grid pattern with the Zodiac’s letters first and Nick’s letters second.

All in all, I was able to find 23 matching lowercase letters, 19 matching uppercase letters and 8 matching numbers. (Not all letters or numbers were available for both the Zodiac and Nick for comparison in the letters/notes that I found.) The only lowercase letters that I was not able to find in the samples that I had were j, p, q, x and z. There are also six uppercase letters that I was not able to find matches to. They are Q, U, W, X, Y and Z. Lastly, I found all but the numbers 1 and 2.

Samples of the Zodiac’s handwriting were taken from the letters that he wrote between 1969 and 1972 and Bryan Hartnell’s car door. Samples of Nick’s handwriting were taken from a letter that he had written to my sons in December of 1998, the backs of four photos that were taken around 2000 and a package that Nick sent to me in 2008.

While comparing their handwriting, I noticed that the Zodiac used the normal way of capitalizing letters in the beginning of sentences and for names of people and places. But, Nick typically wrote using all capital letters. That made it difficult to find matching letters since Nick did not have a lot of lowercase letters for comparison and the Zodiac did not have a lot of uppercase letters for comparison. Also, I think that using uppercase letters could have been a simple way for Nick to disguise his handwriting.

In the first, three letters that the Zodiac sent to the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner and Vallejo Times Herald, his handwriting sloped downward. This caused some people to speculate that he was depressed. Perhaps the Zodiac heard about this, because he seemed to make a conscious effort to keep his lines straight in subsequent letters by using a ruler or by placing a piece of lined paper under the sheet of paper he was writing on.

Nick also made a conscious effort to keep his lines straight. He typically uses a ruler when writing. When using a ruler, it is difficult to make some lowercase letter such as g, j, p, q and y because they have tails that go below the line. This could be another reason that Nick uses uppercase letters in the place of lowercase letters. But, I was able to find a lowercase g on a package that Nick sent to me in the word “Fragile,” since he did not use a ruler when writing it.

Other similarities include the fact that both the Zodiac and Nick used a felt tip marker. Nick still uses felt tip markers to this day when writing. Also, Nick is right handed and evidence suggests that the Zodiac was right handed as well. Also, the Zodiac wrote, “Christ mass,” which led some to believe that he may be Catholic. Nick was raised Catholic as well.

There are four specific letters that distinguish the Zodiac’s handwriting. I have added a fifth, which I call the “lollipop I.”

They are the:
• Cursive d,
• Candy cane f,
• Lollipop I,
• Three stroke k,
• And the check mark r.
I was able to find each of these letters in Nick’s writing as well.

Lastly, I compared the word, Vallejo, which was written by the Zodiac and the word, Valley, which was written by Nick.

(I sent the handwriting comparisons that go with this letter to Morf13, and hopefully, he will be able to attach them here soon!!)

Hi Morf .. Have you got a copy of this hand writing to post up yet..

Here is the first page of the handwriting comparison I did comparing my ex-husband’s handwriting to the Zodiac’s.