Why would Hartnell’s survival bother him more than Mageau’s?

Because he gave Hartnell details he expected to die with him but didn’t. Hartnell’s recounting of events have clues that can connect to this guy. He also heard his voice. Had a conversation with him and survived.

Even though Hartnell survived the attack, which the attacker hadn’t forseen or expected, it was wholly beneficial to Zodiac. He got the entire story of the days events and the description of the hooded costume graphically detailed in the newspapers. What more could he add in a letter. Bryan Hartnell effectively gave the narcissistic braggart the attention he so passionately craved.

Even though Hartnell survived the attack, which the attacker hadn’t forseen or expected, it was wholly beneficial to Zodiac. He got the entire story of the days events and the description of the hooded costume graphically detailed in the newspapers. What more could he add in a letter. Bryan Hartnell effectively gave the narcissistic braggart the attention he so passionately craved.

this is a good point. we don’t know if the zodiac’s original plans at lb were changed because there was a survivor. he certainly seemed to inflict enough damage to have reasonably assumed they’d die, but maybe he thought they’d live long enough to tell the tale of the boogeyman in the costume or maybe he planned to write a letter to that effect. walking away from the scene it would have been obvious they weren’t dead yet. he either didn’t care about that or, knowing he was going to write on the car, he was concerned about spending too much time at the crime scene.

The Zodiac has left people barely alive in the middle of nowhere to die. This happened with the SRHMs also.

Hartnell has a knife wound that sliced through the tissue of his heart. He was not meant to live. He barely survived. LE at the scene secured that for him by responding on time but a pity that they could not do the same for Shepard despite getting her to a hospital.

IMO the key things we are not supposed to know are "prison guard" and something "lodge". LE introduce DEER and Hartnell seemed to agree however there are many other things that could work also.

Remove the weird elements – hood, lies, hogtie, stabbing, writing and phone call. What you are left with are subject control tactics from verbal commands at gun point to getting them to kneel to be restrained. He had the female restrain the male first. He understood to take out the male first. I mean flashlights into the eyes at BRS also.

It’s EARONS all over again without the rapes.

No it’s not JJD. It’s someone just like him. All the people thinking JJD is the Zodiac are seeing the elements that point to LE. That’s it.

Why would Hartnell’s survival bother him more than Mageau’s?

Because he gave Hartnell details he expected to die with him but didn’t. Hartnell’s recounting of events have clues that can connect to this guy. He also heard his voice. Had a conversation with him and survived.

The Zodiac has left people barely alive in the middle of nowhere to die. This happened with the SRHMs also.

Hartnell has a knife wound that sliced through the tissue of his heart. He was not meant to live. He barely survived. LE at the scene secured that for him by responding on time but a pity that they could not do the same for Shepard despite getting her to a hospital.

IMO the key things we are not supposed to know are "prison guard" and something "lodge". LE introduce DEER and Hartnell seemed to agree however there are many other things that could work also.

This makes no sense to me. If we are to believe the whole escape from prison story revealed truths that were dangerous to Zodiac, and if we believe Shooter Z and LB Z are the same guy, how does that work? He kills Jensen and Faraday, kills Ferrin and injures Mageau, gets captured for something different, is sent to prison in Montana or Colorado or somewhere, and promptly escapes, sews the costume, and attacks at LB?

If there is any truth to the "escaped from prison" story, he can’t be Shooter Z.

Why would Hartnell’s survival bother him more than Mageau’s?

Because he gave Hartnell details he expected to die with him but didn’t. Hartnell’s recounting of events have clues that can connect to this guy. He also heard his voice. Had a conversation with him and survived.

The Zodiac has left people barely alive in the middle of nowhere to die. This happened with the SRHMs also.

Hartnell has a knife wound that sliced through the tissue of his heart. He was not meant to live. He barely survived. LE at the scene secured that for him by responding on time but a pity that they could not do the same for Shepard despite getting her to a hospital.

IMO the key things we are not supposed to know are "prison guard" and something "lodge". LE introduce DEER and Hartnell seemed to agree however there are many other things that could work also.

This makes no sense to me. If we are to believe the whole escape from prison story revealed truths that were dangerous to Zodiac, and if we believe Shooter Z and LB Z are the same guy, how does that work? He kills Jensen and Faraday, kills Ferrin and injures Mageau, gets captured for something different, is sent to prison in Montana or Colorado or somewhere, and promptly escapes, sews the costume, and attacks at LB?

If there is any truth to the "escaped from prison" story, he can’t be Shooter Z.

Oh his story is lie. The narrative a lie. However there are elements in the story that are likely associated with the killer in some ways. He is twisting things around. He is probably the guard that was assaulted by a prisoner trying to escape. He has connections to some LODGE somewhere. That sort of thing. There a little truths in there which he twisted around. He is grabbing from things he knows well and making a story out of them.

Oh his story is lie. The narrative a lie. However there are elements in the story that are likely associated with the killer in some ways. He is twisting things around. He is probably the guard that was assaulted by a prisoner trying to escape. He has connections to some LODGE somewhere. That sort of thing. There a little truths in there which he twisted around. He is grabbing from things he knows well and making a story out of them.

You are completely re-writing evidence in this case, inventing things from imagination, to make it fit your narrative.

Logically:
If what he actually said was true, he can’t be Shooter Z
If what he actually said is his own fabrication, then he’s an elaborate liar who is inventing a super villain (escaped prisoner) persona for himself.

Yet, we want to believe he is Zodiac because he says so on the car door? I think it’s more logical that it’s just further fantasy invention.

In any case, if the escaped prisoner story is a lie as we agree, then why be afraid of it as you postulated earlier? The misdirection would benefit, not threaten, him. As far as him being concerned about Hartnell having heard his voice, this guy had no qualms about making the phone call and letting the dispatcher hear his voice.

Oh his story is lie. The narrative a lie. However there are elements in the story that are likely associated with the killer in some ways. He is twisting things around. He is probably the guard that was assaulted by a prisoner trying to escape. He has connections to some LODGE somewhere. That sort of thing. There a little truths in there which he twisted around. He is grabbing from things he knows well and making a story out of them.

You are completely re-writing evidence in this case, inventing things from imagination, to make it fit your narrative.

Logically:
If what he actually said was true, he can’t be Shooter Z
If what he actually said is his own fabrication, then he’s an elaborate liar who is inventing a super villain (escaped prisoner) persona for himself.

Yet, we want to believe he is Zodiac because he says so on the car door? I think it’s more logical that it’s just further fantasy invention.

In any case, if the escaped prisoner story is a lie as we agree, then why be afraid of it as you postulated earlier? The misdirection would benefit, not threaten, him. As far as him being concerned about Hartnell having heard his voice, this guy had no qualms about making the phone call and letting the dispatcher hear his voice.

What evidence am I re-writing? If you mean interpretation of the evidence fine but I am not introducing new facts. We have the same facts.

Just to put things in perspective. I am not the…

– first to postulate Zodiac was LE.
– first to postulate a connection the prison system.
– first to postulate his story at LB contains some truths.

They are as old as the hills. There are many internet threads on each topic.

I often come across questions about why the Zodiac should worry about one little detail. He shouldn’t IF that little detail isn’t combined with another little detail that could make all the difference. If he is forensically aware then he will know this. We will know it’s the little details that could single him out on a big list for example. He has left Wing Walker prints behind also.

You are correct that the dispatchers heard his voice but he held a conversation with Hartnell. They had a good chat and Hartnell was even actively memorizing stuff at the time because he knew it would be important later. You couldn’t get a better witness. If you were the Zodiac would you feel okay about that guy out there who could finger you by voice if you ever got questioned?

I would also point back to JJD whom I mentioned already. He use to tell his victims that LE were PIGS. Tell the PIGS this and that. Yet his fantasy was to be a raping police officer by looks of it. It was a ruse. A red herring.

Zodiac said he was an escaped prisoner who killed a prison guard. A red herring.

After what I learned about JJD, the Zodiac is saying he is an escaped prisoner who killed a guard but what is really going on is that he is a guard who kills his prisoners. Hartnell and Shepard were his captives. That’s the interpretation I make out of the evidence.

I doubt either of us Marshall would have been reading comic books between 18 and 28, but even today we have fully grown men running around in Star Trek costumes shouting “live long and prosper” and "Space: the final frontier". We have grown men inspired by Star Wars dressing as Luke Skywalker, Chewbacca and Darth Vader waving light sabres in your face. These individuals live through fantasy, therefore I don’t find it exceptional that a few mature individuals could still be influenced by comics well into adulthood. We know of avid comic collectors. Factor in what we know, that Zodiac wasn’t typical of most grown men, then it isn’t too hard to believe. I don’t think we can look at Zodiac through a rational mind, because his actions are alien to most reasonable thinking human beings. Everybody is different and everybody thinks differently, therefore attempting to reconcile the actions of one single person by attesting he wouldn’t be reading comics between 18 and 28, would be a bold claim. I put away my train set at 14, but that isn’t the case for everybody.

Yes, it is possible for completely grown men to be reading Tim Holt comic books. Pretty much everything is in the realm of possible. But I think we seem to be agreeing it is less probable. You gave up your trains, and I suppose other childhood stuff, by the age of 14. That’s about the same time I quit playing with toy cars and reading Hardy Boys books too.

Can we agree it is more probable that a child, maybe 8-14 years old, would be reading Tim Holt comics, as opposed to an adult aged 18-28?
Do we also agree Tahoe’s Tim Holt comic find ties directly to the LB attack and the halloween card?

As stated above, from Chaucer’s spreadsheet, the age description from the Robbins kids and Foulke peg Z at 35-45 years old, with 40 being the consensus midpoint. The witnesses at LB said this about the LB attacker:

Hartnell: 20 to 30 years of age by voice concept
Miss Linda: approximately 28 years
Miss Linda Lee: approximately 30 years

Furthermore, the dispatchers the Zs called said that BRS Z sounded older, while the LB dispatcher, like Hartnell, said that Z sounded younger.

A person that age, somewhere between 20 and 30, would’ve been 3-13 in 1952 when that Tim Holt comic came out. If we agree this is a more likely age range for that comic to have been read, then the younger age estimate (a ten year difference) makes the age estimate of the LB killer a far more likely tie-in to the comic and halloween card, which fits right in with the fact he was the guy writing "By Knife" on the car door.

To say the killers at LB and PH are the same you must believe one of the following:
1. The 3 witnesses plus the dispatcher all missed LB Z’s age by 10 years, and the guy was reading comic books, and being influenced by them, as an adult. Or,
2. Foulke, a trained police officer, and the Robbins kids, who had the clearest, longest look at Z, missed his age by a full 10 years.

The story the LB killer told Bryan was an obvious fantasy, about being an escaped prisoner. If it was true, as noted above, he couldn’t have been Shooter Z. So, he’s invented this fantasy story about being a villain (an escaped prisoner,) he’s taken great care to sew together a costume which also makes him a fantasy villain, he lies about needing money or a car… Everything he says is BS, and geared towards his play acting the role of super villain, quite in keeping with the comic book. He actually puts on quite a theatrical production with the elaborate costume.

And still, we’re supposed to believe he is actually Shooter Z because…….. he says so?

Richard, in other posts I replied to your analysis of the 340 and how you think it directly connects to the halloween card and LB. Without re-hashing it here, By Rope, By Gun, and By Fire, can be found in 3 of the 340 quadrants. By Knife can be found in 2. Only 12 letters are needed to make all 4 of them. Since the middle column can be used for the quadrant on either side, there are 90 characters in each quadrant. It isn’t surprising that the 12 letters we are looking for are in most of the quadrants, but not all. To me this is pretty clearly random, not to mention, the letters used to spell the weapons are not adjacent, and some within a quadrant are duplicated.

So, with that discounted, what exactly is the reason to believe the killer at LB is the same as Shooter Z? Completely different descriptions, completely different MOs.

If a guy commits a crime at one end of town and calls himself "Bob," and there’s another crime, totally different, committed on the other side of town, and that guy too uses the name "Bob", do we assume it’s the same guy, even if their descriptions differ by 10 years? Or could it be different people using the same name?

I won’t rehash the by gun, by knife etc connection to the 340 again, suffice to say, it’s much more than its connection to the 340. It is the Fairfield letters and the other two ciphers as well, particularly the Z32. I am fairly satisfied the Zodiac was about 40 in 1969, due to three sets of eyewitnesses giving an approximate age of 40. I won’t dismiss out of hand testimony by Slaight and Hartnell, but voice concept is not as accurate as laying eyes on somebody. I have two recordings of myself at 33 and 57, and believe me, there is no difference whatsoever. Of course, it’s not that difficult to tell the difference between a 25-year-old and 70-year-old, but in this instance we are talking about somebody possibly 25/30 or 40. Voice concept over 10 to 15 years doesn’t wash. Neither does the testimony of Mageau. I believe it’s very likely the 3 girls saw the same man who killed Shepard, but I’m sticking with the confirmed sightings. Voice concept from Slaight and Hartnell is not the same as at least six eyewitnesses in a 5 minute window after the Stine shooting, placing the suspect’s age at around 40. So in 1952, I agree, he would be about 23 and an unlikely reader of comics, albeit it, not unheard of. Serial killers are not that common as a percentage of the population either, so attempting to rationalize them is fraught with danger. I agree that the escaped prisoner nonsense should be taken with a huge dose of salt, and Sergeant John Robertson interviewed Hartnell while he was under sedation and heavily suggestible – and we both know – never initiated the Deer Lodge connection.

I agree that the escaped prisoner nonsense should be taken with a huge dose of salt

The simplest explanation is that it was a ruse, a distraction technique to let down the guard of his victims. We see similar tactics with other serial killers, such as EARONS saying that he only wanted money or Ted Bundy pretending to be injured to gain trust before kidnapping a victim.

And still, we’re supposed to believe he is actually Shooter Z because…….. he says so?

Why shouldn’t we? Serial killers are all antisocial creeps and lunatics and Zodiac is no different. One killer being a shooter, a stabber, and a comic book nerd fantasist is completely believable.

I agree that the escaped prisoner nonsense should be taken with a huge dose of salt

The simplest explanation is that it was a ruse, a distraction technique to let down the guard of his victims. We see similar tactics with other serial killers, such as EARONS saying that he only wanted money or Ted Bundy pretending to be injured to gain trust before kidnapping a victim.

If I want to "let down the guard of my victims," the last thing I’m going to do is approach them wearing a black hood, with the symbol of a serial killer on my chest.

I agree that the escaped prisoner nonsense should be taken with a huge dose of salt

The simplest explanation is that it was a ruse, a distraction technique to let down the guard of his victims. We see similar tactics with other serial killers, such as EARONS saying that he only wanted money or Ted Bundy pretending to be injured to gain trust before kidnapping a victim.

If I want to "let down the guard of my victims," the last thing I’m going to do is approach them wearing a black hood, with the symbol of a serial killer on my chest.

He held them at gunpoint. The ruse was to confuse and give them fake security while they were already in a state of absolute terror. JJD did the same thing.