As a result of Zodiac’s mention of the 1968 Gun Control Act, I started to look into the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) magazine American Rifleman.
If we remember, in Nov 1969 Zodiac writes:
my killing tools have been boughten through the mail order outfits before the ban went into efect. Except one & it was bought out of the state.
So we know he’s paying close attention to the Act.
The Act was first tabled in 1963, in response to the assassination of JFK, since it became know that Lee Harvey Oswald had ordered his rifle by mail-order through American Rifleman magazine. However, the bill languished until 1968 when it was eventually signed into law by Lyndon B. Johnson. However, the act would never have passed were it not for the lobbying efforts of Franklin Orth Executive Vice President of the NRA. This abrupt heel-turn by the gun lobby was of course a reaction to the Black Panthers, based in Oakland, who were advocating for community self-defence and the constitutional right of African Americans to bear arms (i.e. their 2nd Amendment Rights).
Looking through old articles of American Rifleman, I soon discovered a reference to this January 1969 article that discusses a newly innovated optical sight for rifles and pistols, known as the Oxford Gunsight (or Oxford Lighting Illuminated Sight). This article appeared a full ten months before Zodiac first mentions the attachment of "a small pencel flash light to the barrel of my gun."
As you can see this is pretty much what the battery powered Oxford sight is.
American Rifleman Archives: Oxford Gunsight
Described as follows:
Within the black-anodized aluminum sight tube there is a tiny bulb which is powered by a pair of AA size penlight batteries housed in a separate tube above the sight body. When a button at the rear of the black baked enamel die cast zinc housing is pushed from left to right, the bulb lights. But because it is shielded at the rear, the bulb itself is not seen in the sight.
The shooter sees a reflection of the bulb from the rear surface of a single one-X lens at the front of the sight. By a pair of uncovered conventional click-stopped adjustment knobs at the front of the sight, the lens is tilted to move the spot of light from the bulb up and down or from side to side across the visible field to sight-in the rifle or pistol on which the sight is mounted.
Both a focus and a brightness adjustment are provided. The first is adjusted only once when setting up the sight for use, so that only a spot of light is seen and not the elongated image of the bulb filament. The illumination adjustment brightens or dims the bulb for best contrast against a dimly or brightly lit target, and to minimize “bloom” of the spot of light to apparently larger size. This adjustment is made any time to suit shooting conditions.
and furthermore:
It is suggested that a beginning pistol shooter might be able to hit his mark regularly more quickly with the Oxford sight than with conventional sights once he got used to the jiggle of the spot of light over the target.
Whether Zodiac’s claim of a pencil light attachment is real or not, I’d be willing to put money on him being a subscriber to American Rifleman.
Personally I lean towards the below:-
http://zodiackillersite.com/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=5418&p=88459&hilit=Hitchcock#p88459
Personally I lean towards the below:-
http://zodiackillersite.com/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=5418&p=88459&hilit=Hitchcock#p88459
I wanted to comment on that originally. The Hitchcock connection is also very likely, and both could be the inspiration. I wanted to just a provide a little more historical context, and link the various statements by Zodiac, pertaining to guns. Whether Zodiac really understands how the optical sight works, is questionable, given his description in the letter.
BD Holland suggested to me that the semiautomatic used in the Stine murder was a quite a rare model, with only around 150 circulation in the Bay Area, it’s estimated. What’s interesting in American Rifleman are all the mail-order adverts for guns, some of which are recognisable form the case (incl. Luger 9mm).
The killer had fired only the one shot from his semiautomatic pistol. It was an uncommon type—under 150 were sold in the entire Bay Area over the previous three years. Damage to the skin of Stine’s right cheek indicated the gun had been held right up to his head. Defense wounds were on the cabdriver’s left hand.
Olshaker, Mark; Douglas, John E.. The Cases That Haunt Us: From Jack the Ripper to Jon Benet Ramsey, The FBI’s Legendary Mindhunter Sheds New Light on the Mysteries That Won’t Go Away (p. 290)
I found a few more bits and pieces about the Oxford illuminated Sight (sometimes referred to the as the Sears and Roebuck Oxford Illuminated).
Below is a mail order advert published in Field And Stream showing that the retail price had come down from $49 in 1969 to less than $10 by 1972. It was therefore, relatively inexpensive and could be attached to any shotgun, rifle or pistol. Furthermore, the sight was effective enough to have been used in the field by special forces in Laos/Cambodia at the time. So we know it worked.
More generally, the sight is what’s known as a Collimator Sight, the advantage being that the eye didn’t have to be lined up with the target. In the instruction sheet, it says: "Eye position isn’t important. The entire aiming process is greatly simplified."
Therefore, it precedes red dot sights by at least five or six years, since the red dot reflex sight wasn’t invented until 1975. As the advertisement claims, it allowed for aiming in dusk and dark conditions, when it would be otherwise impossible to use an iron sight. Furthermore, it "makes for rapid fire on a moving target, you simply get a light on a target and squeeze". The device takes AA penlight batteries.
As Zodiac mentions, "there was no need to use the gun sights." I’m starting to think it could feasibly be something he owned, since he unnecessarily took issue with the LE view that his targets were silhouetted by moonlight.
Nice job Andr3w_o
Nice job Andr3w_o
Thanks.
I looked up collimating light, and what’s interesting is that you can project point of light to any the distance (the pip mentioned above), without having a specific focal length. This means that the circle of light remains the same size whatever distance from the target. You literally paint your target with a dot, and therefore you can fire without aligning your eye with the barrel. As the advert claims, this facilitates two eyed shooting.
It might explain the tight grouping in the case of Betty Lou Jensen, which was remarked upon by Lundblad, if i remember correctly.
If you look at the autopsy report it can be determined that every shot into Betty Lou’s back had a right to left trajectory (whether an exit wound existed or not), indicating that Betty Lou ran from the shooter’s left side, across him and away. There is a strong possibility every shot was delivered from close range and Betty Lou staggered the remaining feet to her death. Internal structures within the body can deflect a bullet, however, the fact that every exit wound and sitting bullet is to the left of the entry wounds, effectively dispels the notion of a Zodiac Killer of expert marksmanship. Her running across the Zodiac, from his left side and away, is corroborated by the entry wound pattern to the right side of her back.
In the above picture, the three exit wounds are marked with the letter E on Betty Lou Jensen’s back. These exit wounds obviously exited the front of her body relative to the positions shown, but have been placed on the back to highlight the difference between the entry wounds and exit wounds. The other two red dots show the resting position of the remaining bullets within the body.
One can see that four of the bullets that exited or remained in the body, are all situated to the left of the entry wounds in the diagram, but the fifth bullet traveled from right to left also. Bullets do not necessarily follow a linear trajectory when they enter the body, as they can be deflected by the structures within the body, but here the overall pattern of the five bullets show a distinct right to left trajectory. The chances that all five bullets deflected to the left from a shooter standing directly behind Betty Lou Jensen is slim, indicating her body position was oriented on her right side in relation to the shooter for many of the shots, if not all.
https://www.zodiacciphers.com/
“I simply cannot accept that there are, on every story, two equal and logical sides to an argument.” Edward R. Murrow.
So Richard, you’re saying that Betty Lou was traversing Zodiac’s field of fire at relatively close range, given the exit wounds are on the left-hand side of her body. I noticed that shots 4 and 5 are positioned somewhat lower, this might be to do with the yaw of the arm as you swing from a forward firing position, rightward. If you think about it, the shoulder, elbow and wrists are orbits. One of things I noticed about the sight mentioned above, is that since you don’t have to align the eye with the sight, the shooter can fire from a low carry position.
At BRS, Mageau remembers a flashlight and Zodiac’s approach to the car was somewhat different, which perhaps suggests a different strategy overall, since Zodiac decides to shoot them in the car. And in fact, he gets rather annoyed that Magaeu lightning fast, bucks out of position. With the victims trapped in the car, no aiming would be required at all.
Perhaps not a confident shot then.
Yes, this was a .22 weapon fired at relatively close range from her right side. An example such as this (with an extended arm) would explain the gunpowder residue on her dress and the right to left trajectory of the bullets. Also, at some point she would have been staggering forward (likely bent over), corroborated by the description of the internal damage at autopsy. Not forgetting, this is just a crude drawing.
There are five bullet wounds of entry on the right side of the back: three on the posterior chest cage and two over the right lower posterior lumbar areas. From up downwards:
[1] The first is located in the 5th intercostal space, 3 and 3/4 inches right of the midline.
[2] The second is in the 8th intercostal space, 5 and 1/2 inches from the midline.
[3] The third is in the 9th intercostal space, 1 and 1/2 inches from the midline.
[4] The fourth in the tip of the right 12th rib, 3 and 1/2 inches from the midline.
[5] The fifth is over the crest of the posterior right iliac bone and 5 and 1/2 inches from the midline.
There are three exit wounds:
[1] The first is over the left interior chest laterally and left margin of the breast, in the 4th intercostal space and 5 and 1/2 inches from the sternum.
[2] The second is in the anterior abdominal wall, below the xyphoid process and 1/2 an inch from the midline.
[3] The third is laterally and 3 and 3/4 inches to the right of the umbilicus.
‘The bullet wound over the posterior iliac crest penetrates the deep muscles and exits to the right of the umbilicus’. This is bullet [5], which literally enters and exits her body one and a half inches offline. It entered her lower back (dark mark) and exited the front of her body ‘3 and 3/4 inches to the right of the umbilicus’, indicating she was likely running away from the shooter at this point, in an upright position. Every bullet that entered Betty Lou Jensen traveled from right to left.
Four wounds, marked in red (2 exit wounds from the front of her body and 2 bullets that remained in the body) can be seen marked on the upper portion of Betty Lou Jensen’s back, yet two bullets entered low down on her right side. We know the trajectory of bullet [5], so bullet [4] clearly traveled from her lower back to upper back, strongly indicating that Betty Lou Jensen was likely hunched over at this point, struggling to escape the relentless onslaught. The likelihood therefore is that bullets [1], [2] and [3] effectively traveled directly across from the right shoulder area to the mid and left side, as stated here; ‘Lungs: There are three through and through bullet wounds, corresponding to the three bullet wounds of entry on the right posterior chest cage and one bullet wound through the left lung, in line with the wound through the heart. They are associated with extensive hemorrhage of both lungs.’
It is difficult to ascertain the exact order of the wounds inflicted that night, but if the uppermost hole in Betty Lou Jensen’s dress contained the gunshot residue, then it could be argued that bullet hole [1] was the first shot fired, and likely bullet hole [3] may have been the fatal or final shot that night, as the autopsy stated ‘Heart: A bullet wound penetrates from right to left through both atrium.’ The trajectory of bullet wound [3] is consistent with injury to the heart. The following diagram illustrates one possibility of the order of events that night.
https://www.zodiacciphers.com/
“I simply cannot accept that there are, on every story, two equal and logical sides to an argument.” Edward R. Murrow.
So, Richard, based on the graphic above, you have Betty Lou positioned closer to the front wheel of the vehicle to the right of David when David was shot. I had always visualized David being closer to the front wheel and Betty Lou positioned to his left when he was shot. The passenger door was open when police arrived and David in front of the opening to the passenger side on the ground. Are you saying that Betty Lou ran around the open passenger door and behind Zodiac to escape?
“Murder will out, this my conclusion.”
– Geoffrey Chaucer
So, Richard, based on the graphic above, you have Betty Lou positioned closer to the front wheel of the vehicle to the right of David when David was shot. I had always visualized David being closer to the front wheel and Betty Lou positioned to his left when he was shot. The passenger door was open when police arrived and David in front of the opening to the passenger side on the ground. Are you saying that Betty Lou ran around the open passenger door and behind Zodiac to escape?
Possibly Chaucer, but that was just a crude example. However, it does suggest David being shot first, with his feet virtually touching the right rear tire of the Rambler as he fell. Betty Lou would have been closer to the open door. After David was shot, the Zodiac Killer would have turned and started shooting Betty Lou into the right side of her back as she started running west. The open door and the close knit grouping of casings seem to suggest a relatively stationary shooter. I always thought that Betty Lou logically should have been positioned to the left of David as she exited the Rambler first. But if this was the case, after David was shot, the right to left trajectory of bullets would be unlikely when she ran. My interpretation is that Betty Lou stepped out and remained by the door, and when David exited, he was ushered to the left, by the right rear wheel. After he was shot, Betty Lou ran.
https://www.zodiacciphers.com/
“I simply cannot accept that there are, on every story, two equal and logical sides to an argument.” Edward R. Murrow.
After David was shot, the Zodiac Killer would have turned and started shooting Betty Lou into the right side of her back as she started running west.
If correct then, Zodiac first muscled the two out of the car via front passenger door. Betty Lou came out first (so there must have been a moment when she was ‘face to face’ with Z), and David was shot probably as soon as he emerged and Z saw the kill shot he wanted. After that he shot down Betty Lou as she fled into the dark.
So Z evolves a bit at BRS: Z does not muscle the two from the car at all. He steps up and opens a barrage directly at the victims through the passenger window. He does not want these victims to emerge from the vehicle with the chance of flight.
He is looking for victims who will just sit still and be murdered, basically.
That was too much!
He is looking for victims who will just sit still and be murdered, basically.
Which is basically where it evolves to with the LB attack.
I was thinking, the differing heights of the shots in Betty Lou’s case could well because her body is falling as she’s running. Yet as Richard says, we don’t know the order of the shots.
It’s really sad.
On page 51 of the December 1967 issue of Popular Science, in an article written by Erle Stanley Gardner (creator of Perry Mason) about new police anti-riot technology, the following appears:
“Flashlight aiming beam. Still another development in the works is a flashlight revolver that will throw a concentrated beam of light with a small black dot in the exact center. When a button is pressed, the revolver fires a projectile at the exact point covered by the black spot. As matters now stand, an officer making an arrest at night has to hold a flashlight in one hand and, if needed, his gun in the other. If the person arrested has a firearm and tries to use it, the officer must try, simply by the feel of the weapon, to put a bullet within the circle of light
thrown by his flashlight.With the new weapon, a projectile will speed unerringly to the exact point necessary to subdue the prisoner.”
I’m sure everyone here is very familiar with the 4 Aug 1969 letter, but for reference: “What I did was tape a small pencel flash light to the barrel of my gun. If you notice, in the center of the beam of light if you aim it at a wall or celling you will see a black or darck spot in the center of the circle of light about 3 to 6 inches across. When taped to a gun barrel, the bullet will strike exactly in the center of the black dot in the light. All I had to do was spray them as if it was a water hose; there was no need to use the gun sights.”
Given the thematic overlap and the overlaps of phraseology and word usage, and the fact that the publication is relatively recent to the writing of the letter, this would seem to be the source material. Which asks many questions and answers none of the ones all ready asked about this, at best, dubious claim of the writer.
I think Faraday physically fought with the Zodiac because Faraday realized Jensen was the focus of the Zodiac’s attention. There is some evidence of him being struck before being shot at point blank. So I am guessing it is around this time that Faraday told her to run. The next time the Zodiac would make sure the males were dealt with first.
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