Most interesting!

To put this in a clearer picture, imagination a man who is a combination of Gordon Gecko from Wall Street, Frank Underwood from House of Cards, and Tony Stark from Iron Man.

Kjell Q comes to mind.

I know a couple of things.

One, it is extremely difficult to do an accurate psychological profile of a person from nothing except a handful of murders, codes, and letters.

Second, despite the inherent difficulty in this, people continue to try and characterize Zodiac’s psychology all the time.

That said, I am putting this out there, not so much to attempt to pin down Zodiac’ mental health, as much as possibly assist in filling in some blanks in the profile.

In my research, I came across the concept of what psychologists call the "Dark Triad". That is a combination of three personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_triad

Essentially, people scoring high on all three of these traits are more likely to commit crimes, engage in risky and promiscuous sexual behavior, engage in violence against their partners, cause social distress and cyberbully (think "internet troll"). I think this fits what we know about Zodiac pretty well.

Here is some more detail:

Narcissism is characterized by grandiosity, pride, egotism, and a lack of empathy.
Machiavellianism is characterized by manipulation and exploitation of others, a cynical disregard for morality, and a focus on self-interest and deception. The ends justify the means.
Psychopathy is characterized by continuing antisocial behavior, impulsivity, selfishness, callousness, and remorselessness.

These three traits overlap and are best viewed as a sort of three circle Venn diagram. People who score high in these three traits often:

* engage in aggressive, violent, abnormal, and/or anti-social behavior
* engage in racist or bigoted thinking
* engage in bullying – especially anonymous bullying (such as cyberbullying)
* engage in sadism
* engage in substance abuse
* are extremely disagreeable
* are extremely selfish
* are of above average intelligence
* are experts in deception and manipulation (they often hide their worst traits from others)
* are extremely disliked by their co-workers and/or employees
* are impulsive thrillseekers
* are more likely to engage in adultery and mate-stealing and are more sexually promiscuous in general
* exhibit symptoms similar to ADHD
* are more likely to pursue and gain higher level management/leadership roles at work rather (think corporate CEOs)
* often judged by others to be physically better looking than average

To determine how high one scores on the Dark Triad, they are asked to answer 12 questions:

I tend to manipulate others to get my way.
I have used deceit or lied to get my way.
I have used flattery to get my way.
I tend to exploit others towards my own end.
I tend to lack remorse.
I tend to not be too concerned with morality or the morality of my actions.
I tend to be callous or insensitive.
I tend to be cynical.
I tend to want others to admire me.
I tend to want others to pay attention to me.
I tend to seek prestige or status.
I tend to expect special favors from others.

From and article in Psychology Today:

"People who score high on the traditional Dark Triad measures that test each of the three qualities separately show a pattern of behavior that in fact combines the worst of all worlds. They seek out multiple, casual sex partners. When someone gets in their way, they act out aggressively to take what they want. Oddly enough, although their self-esteem doesn’t seem to be either higher or lower than others, people who score high on the Dark Triad qualities have an unstable view of themselves. Perhaps reflecting the aggressiveness inherent in the Dark Triad, these tendencies are more likely to be shown by men, particularly those who are high on psychopathy and Machiavellianism."

So, to summarize, someone who scores high in the Dark Triad is typically intelligent, good looking, charming, and high achieving. They also lie, cheat, steal, bully, and sleep around. They abuse drugs and alcohol. They can be violent and aggressive, and at times a bit bizarre in their behavior and interests. They are more likely to be the boss you can’t stand or the co-worker who you hate to be around or the loud, weird, racist uncle who ruins Thanksgiving dinner when he gets drunk and slaps your sister on her ass. They are internet trolls who anonymously post hateful material online or try to be argumentative, provocative, controversial, or contrarian just for "the lulz".

To put this in a clearer picture, imagination a man who is a combination of Gordon Gecko from Wall Street, Frank Underwood from House of Cards, and Tony Stark from Iron Man.

I’m not saying this is Zodiac’s profile, but I am saying it COULD be, and if it is, it could narrow down the list of suspects or confirm current suspects.

Food for thought.

Hi Chaucer, this is also the exact profile for a psychopath. The thing about killer psychopath’s, the vast majority aren’t dangerous, is that no matter how hard they try or how dangerous it gets, they just can’t stop killing. If Zodiac was a psychopath and there seems little doubt he was, then he would have only stopped if dead, unable to carry on due to being in hospital, jail or whatever or he never did stop. It’s at least conceivable that Z carried on killing way into the 80s or 90s but because of the danger resisted the urge to publicise the killings or leave clues. Just a thought but a very chilling one. Thanks for the interesting post.

Psychopathy is only one part of the Dark Triad. The other parts are narcissism and Machiavellianism. In some people, one of the three traits are stronger in a person than others. For example, someone with a strong Machiavellian trait might only kill for a reason – to get famous, to get letters and codes printed in papers, etc. Killing for them is a means to an end; the end being notoriety.

It’s possible that once Zodiac achieved infamy, he stopped killing. He had met his goal. It’s also possible that he never stopped killing. Instead, we may have been stopped being told or Zodiac stopped telling us.

The Dark Triad is useful for understanding successful corporate psychopath’s, but I don’t think it’s used much to identify serial killers. The Macdonald triad was used for that once upon a time, though it’s very out of date.

Unlike the often socially and financially successful corporate psychopath, the serial killer is much more of a misfit. It may not be superficially obvious, but most serial killers are failures in one way or another.

Serial Killers are much more likely to have schizophrenic traits than the general population. This doesn’t mean that the average full blown schizophrenic is dangerous, we’re looking more for a softer presentation of the disease, so signs like social withdrawal and odd thinking would be favorable in a POI.

Serial killers aren’t all crazy, but most of them are definitely odd.

Chaucer came up with a good psychological profile that explains many things why sometimes events get out of control.

Without starting a political discussion, imo the ‘racist’ part is irrelevant for such ‘profile’ (as it unrightfully suggests a specific political philosophy equals to psychopathism). One could also replace the word ‘racist’ by ‘feminist’, ‘environmentalist’, ‘liberalist’, ‘pacifist’, ‘chaperoneist’ etc. I’d rather suggest that such people might tend to ‘extremisms’ (and/or odd behaviour), whatever type of extremisms that would actually be (have a look at Culliver’s fitness machine..or his opiniion about politicians or abortion).

Second, aside of the described ‘dark triad’, there exist other influencing factors such as mental illness or, seen often enough, an above-average intelligence. From a certain level, latter people are not ablet to bring up (in their view ‘irrational’) empathic behaviour. It simply doesn’t match their pattern of thinking, which is targeted on rationalism only. I don’t talk about some smart, intelligent person but about people, who have an IQ way above 140, such as 155 or higher (guess one in a million, thus don’t worry). They simply are not able to feel empathy or act according to such humanity. Some even aren’t able to put on their clothes correctly (because their brain works in a way that putting on clothes every day is an irrational waste of time and energy..also it doesn’t work very in a ‘pattern’ which can be repeated to be done in an efficient way).

Ted Bundy might have been quite a good example for the dark triad: Surely he was a Machiavellist, a narcisst as well as a psychopath, all at the same time. He was very manipulative, tended to exploit people (helping them..ending up in the fridge), pride etc. Selfishness & remorselessness? Yes, thus all of it. Bundy was intelligent, in a specific way (manipulation) but rather not too intelligent to not being able to handle his daily ‘life’ anymore. Nevertheless, his above-average IQ (if present) could have supported the ‘dark triad’ in a certain way, e.g. the remorselessness, lack of empathy etc.

QT

Yes, the Dark Triad can be predictive of anti-social workplace behavior and these traits are often present in corporate CEOs. Still, these traits are not restrict to just those types of people. They are also present in serial killers. In fact, I think all three traits of the Triad are present in the Zodiac – at least based on the evidence we have at hand. He was certainly narcissicistic in a gradiose way. He wanted to be famous. He mocked the police about how much better and smarter he was. He gave himself a nickname. He wrote codes to demonstrate how much smarter he was than everyone else. He was certainly psychopathic. He killed without remorse or empathy. He was anti-social. He was a pathological liar. He also presented evidence of Machiavellianism. He didn’t kill for simply pleasure. He killed to get his name in the paper. As time wore on, the letter writing to the newspapers overtook his killing. He didn’t appear to kill for sexual reasons like BTK or Bundy. He never sexually molested his victims. The greater violence shown toward his female victims was a matter of circumstance rather than intent: Betty Lou ran, Cecilia fought, etc. I don’t think Zodiac is like other serial killers. I don’t list him alongside BTK, Bundy, Dahmer. I see him more as a domestic terrorist. A guy who used murder as a way to gain infamy and troll the police. I don’t think murder gave him pleasure as much as it gave him power. Killing was a tool. The idea of Zodiac as a weird loner who hated women and heard voices never jived with me. I think he was charismatic, had friends, had casual sex with many partners, was relatively successful professionally, and would be described by others as "seemingly normal". But I think he led a double life. He was angry because he felt he was owed more by society than what he had. He felt overlooked. He saw himself as superior to others, and looked down on people. Despite his string of sexual encounters, he was lonely and craved attention.

I believe that if Zodiac was active today, he would be an internet troll. He would spam message boards with offensive posts. He’d argue on Twitter, just to argue. He’d post revenge porn on 4chan just to get back at an ex-girlfriend. He’d make jokes about victims of violent crimes, and send mocking messages to their family members. Essentially, he’d be – pardon my language – an asshole. He’d be totally normal face to face, but secretly, he’d be a complete jerk to everyone online – just for kicks. Just for "the lulz" as they say.

Now, this is merely speculation, and I won’t for a second pretend that I have any special insight into the guy. This is only my take away from the case. It’s just my opinion based on the facts as I see them.

QT, I would agree that there are a number of factors at play here, and that the Triad is not an easy answer. I do find it interesting, and I think some application of it to the Zodiac case could be helpful. Clearly, psychology is not a cut and dry science, but I think this can be helpful in creating a profile that we might not have seen before.

Also, here is a study on the dark traits that directly link with racism and bigotry: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a … via%3Dihub

Hi,

Narcissism is characterized by grandiosity, pride, egotism, and a lack of empathy.
Machiavellianism is characterized by manipulation and exploitation of others, a cynical disregard for morality, and a focus on self-interest and deception. The ends justify the means.
Psychopathy is characterized by continuing antisocial behavior, impulsivity, selfishness, callousness, and remorselessness.

I know someone like that, lol. I mention all three traits in the book that nobody discusses but which is drawing 4.5 stars on Amazon and 5 stars on Amazon.co.uk, The Hunt for Zodiac. Maybe KQ is not such a bad suspect after all.

Mike

Did some of you watch HLN last night "Very Scary People" ? Last night was about John Wayne Gacy , he was soooo nice according to many who knew him, but he had a very dark side they knew nothing about.

Zodiac could be thought of in the same way? That same show "Very Scary People"will be doing one about Zodiac in a few weeks. I am looking forward to seeing what they have that we don’t know already.
I do not believe that Zodiac has stopped killing , there are a few women who got away from the man who claims he is Zodiac. That was in the 1990’s, after Art Allen had died. I do believe that he has killed over 100 and is still very much alive. I believe his age to be 75 to 80 yrs old and in pretty good health.

Lets not forget that Zodiac said he would not stop killing, he would let us guess who and when. For about 10 yrs he didn’t write or call the police, then in the late 80’s he started to write again and call , but by then Zodiac case was so cold , that people in LE didn’t want to believe it was the true Zodiac making those claims. (Eureka card Dec 1990 ,example )

We have another example on Dec.12th 2018. No one wanted to think that the note written on a wall at "Diablo"valley collage could have been from the Zodiac. It was signed with his typical Z along with words to kill and a drawing of a gun and a bullet hole. That certainly could have been from him, he was all over the news around that time, because of the up coming 50th anniversary. I received three phone calls that same afternoon, letting me know that my suspect was near by. Coincidence maybe, but I doubt it.

Funny how Qvale corresponds to all the items in the double list suggested by Chaucer

Funny how Qvale corresponds to all the items in the double list suggested by Chaucer

According to people who knew Qvale, he was not at all like that list. He was a good friend to a dear friend of mine, who thought the world of Qvale.

From what we know about the Zodiac, that list fits the Zodiac. Until Zodiac is caught, we can’t say with certainty any of the known suspects fit that list.

Hi Sandy,

Everyone knows that KQ was outwardly a very nice man. I don’t even dispute that. But I hope you agree that people can have different personalities that they can flash at different times depending on the circumstances. In fact, I discuss this in my book. For instance, this nice man invited me to meet him in SF in 2006 and then proceeded to lie to my face on many important issues related to his involvement in the Z case. Also, there is an article from 1964 that has a large paragraph about how aloof and distant KQ was. But he didn’t show that side of himself all the time, right? And that particular side jibes very well with what people have said about Z for many years.

Mike

Mike I do agree, people can hide their dark side very well. It was the other poster who said that everything on that list fit KQ, I don’t think that anyone can know that for sure about KQ or any other suspect for that matter.

I posted how people had great things to say about John Wayne Gacy. We know he was not a nice man.

Until Zodiac is caught, we can’t say with certainty any of the known suspects fit that list.

Of course we can! That’s called criminal profiling.