Nice layout and it makes sense. I think many have come to the conclusion he was around 30 years old and it makes sense considering that is about average of what witnesses said.

Even Fouke said 35 on the low end, but said his hair was (possibly) graying which could account for him tacking on more years.

Did the Zodiac not make claims to be wearing some type of disguise? If true, how can we be so certain that all the visual descriptions given are in fact correct and not of a disguised individual?

Solid breakdown. I’d be absolutely floored if the Zodiac was identified and discovered to be over 30 at the time of the murders. Based on an analysis of similar offender profiles, I’d put him somewhere between 22 and 27 years old at the time of the attack at Lake Herman Road.

The Zodiac Age Descriptions

• Mike Mageau, Age 19, Blue Rock Springs: Only saw shooter for brief moment from a side profile, and has re-iterated this fact over the years. "Stated subject was a white male, approximately 26-30 years.Was unable to judge real well what his age was."

[/*:m:1pwjlslk]

• Nancy Slover, Age 26, Blue Rock Springs: Dispatcher who took phone call from Zodiac. Describe his voice as "mature" in police report. She said it sounded "mid 30’s."

[/*:m:1pwjlslk]

• Linda #1, Age 22, Lake Berryessa: While at Lake Berryessa, was watched by a man staring at them from the trees. Behavior is similar to Z, but may or may not be Z. Describes man as approximately 28 in police report.

[/*:m:1pwjlslk]

• Linda #2, Age 21, Lake Berryessa: While at Lake Berryessa, was watched by a man staring at them from the trees. Behavior is similar to Z, but may or may not be Z. Describes man as approximately 30 in police report.

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• David Slaight, Age 24, Lake Berryessa: Dispatcher who took phone call from Zodiac. Described his voice as "young sounding, possibly early 20’s."

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• Bryan Hartnell, Age 20, Lake Berryessa: Described Z as being between 20 and 30, according to police report. Based this mostly off of his voice/behavior, since Z was wearing a mask.

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• Three Teens, Ages 13/14/16, San Fran: The composite drawn from these three teen’s testimony lists his age range as 25-30. Viewed scene from 50 ft. away with no obstruction. Area has a reputation for being well lit. (Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any report or interview where it states their age estimates. I’m basing the 25-30 number off the initial Stine composite).

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• Officer Fouke, Age 30, San Fran: Stopped a white male fitting the description of the Zodiac shortly after the Stine murder. Described the person as being 35-45. Said he looked similar to the composite, but "older and heavier" than the composite. The area was dark but lit with streetlights, and Fouke claimed to have placed his headlights on the suspect. Fouke is a trained professional, though his age description is the most divergent of all the descriptions. Openly states that lighting might have made hair look grayer than it actually was (or so I’ve heard — I wasn’t able to find where he said this). Zodiac made a claim of having an encounter with the police in a subsequent letter, and most believe this is the Fouke’s encounter, but it is still uncertain whether the man Fouke’s saw was actually Zodiac.[/*:m:1pwjlslk][/list:u:1pwjlslk]

Here is my take on the affair:

1. Mike Mageau – Although he saw the shooter, no positive profile description can be admissible. (He saw someone who could look like anyone). If the Zodiac had been apprehended back in the late 60’s, I bet Mageau would not positively identify the individual in a common police line up.

2. Nancy Glover – Voice recognition over the phone can be a tricky subject. In my line of work I have spoken to individuals on a face to face basis, who over the phone sound completely different. If I hadn’t known who I was talking to and was asked to provide a profile description of the individual, I would have been way off the mark. In fact, one of my colleagues who is 26 sounds 45+ over the phone.

3. Linda – Saw a man staring from besides a tree a good distance away. Did she ever provide details on the subjects appearance at that particular instance? No! Did she notice if he had glasses on at the time? No! What colour was his hair when she saw him besides the tree? Did he have a beard? However he was between 28-30.

4. David Slaight – see above (Nancy Glover).

5. Bryan Hartnell – His description is based on the individual’s voice and behaviour and saw his hair colour through the holes on the mask. Could the Zodiac be wearing a wig? What made Hartnell believe the individual was in his 20’s because of his behaviour? Do 20 year old’s murder someone differently to folks who are in their 30? Why could a 40 year old not be nervous when committing a murder? However, the voice gave him up. I wonder if back in the 60’s all 20 year old males dressed in the same fashion as the Zodiac did that fateful day. Could he be wearing a disguise?

6. Three teens- Saw the Zodiac 50 ft. away from a second storey window in the middle of the night with no obstruction! Well, thank goodness that apparently no description of the individual had been provided, otherwise, regardless of it being a "well lit area", it would have required superhuman efforts to have given any sort of positive profile on the perpetrator. (Age, hair colour, clothing, etc…).

7. Officer Fouke – It’s hard to believe if his testimony is correct. Other officers categorically claim that Fouke fabricated the hole affair and no individual was stopped, spoken to, or seen walking down the street. However, the Zodiac claims the event did take place when he wrote about it in a letter. Who do we believe?

I cannot compile a positive description of the individual from the details given by the surviving victims, police, and those who claim to have seen someone resembling the Zodiac. We have claims to his age but that is all. Moreover, even that seems to be shrouded in controversy. The two composite sketches provided by the police (of the individual) are different from each other. Even Kathleen Johns description of the individual is dismissible. So, how do I reach a point where I claim to know who the Zodiac truly is? From what I have read and understand, I can’t put the blame on anyone. This is my logical approach to the case.

Your arms feel like Esau’s,
but your voice sounds like Jacobs.

The farmer cooks up red herrings,
then drags them around his garden.
Then comes the followers following the
smell of those herrings!

Zodiac escaped by dragging red herrings
around his murders.

Blind Bat

@sectarianviolins:

Solid breakdown! I like it.

Nothing to add, really, apart from some minor points:

It is possible that Z belonged to the not entirely uncommon category of people who do, in fact, look significantly older or younger than their age. This could be natural or due to some sort of disguise (which didn’t have to be elaborate at all). As I’ve said before somewhere (I think), there was a member of one of the Z boards back in the day who dressed his teenage son up in some "older looking" clothes, slapped some business like specs on him – and had people estimate his age. A significant amount added a decade (or even more) to the kid’s age.

I am close to forty myself and I was asked for ID at a bar not too long ago. This isn’t because I’m sensationally youthful in appearance, but due to certain non-constant factors: I haven’t lost much hair, said hair has retained its original color and I do have a bit of the baby face syndrome – meaning that I can add or remove a decade from my appearance (certainly when observed from a distance) simply by growing a beard/shaving. So, if I sport a youthful haircut, youthful clothes and a clean shave – I can easily appear significantly younger than I would if I sported a mustache, glasses and a business suit.

What I’m saying is that I wouldn’t draw an absolute line at forty – I don’t think the facts actually support this. Z was never (as far as we know for sure) observed closely by anyone. And it remains a real possibility (for me, at least) that he did indeed take measures to alter his appearance (to some extent).

I fully agree with what looks like your conclusion, though: The age discrepancies as per the witnesses are no reason to launch any multiple Z/team Z/hoax theories. They do not contradict each other wildly.

Lastly, Stine scene: Well, that one is tricky. I wish we had more reports. I would love to see what those kids actually told Toschi and Armstrong. As far as we know, the infamous composite was revised with zero input from Fouke (or Zelms) – the older looking Z in the revised version is supposedly purely down to the kids themselves not being happy with the initial one. I don’t know about that myself. I find it incredibly odd that they didn’t consult Fouke AT ALL, considering he actually saw the guy from a much closer distance than the kids.

There’s also the question of what the kids actually saw. Some people seem to think they had a brilliant view of the man and that the composite as such must be very accurate. Others seem to suggest they hardly saw anything beyond the basics. I don’t know. Hard to tell.

But, in conclusion, going back to the research you mention in the OP, we have to keep in mind that estimating someone’s age in ideal conditions is very different from estimating the age of someone you witness committing a crime. And even in ideal circumstances people are fooled by appearances. How a person dresses, how he speaks, how he generally behaves – influences our estimate of how old he is. It’s not simply a matter of looking at a face and then making an estimate as to how old the person is – we are easily distracted, most of us, by this or or that or the other thing.

Thanks for posting this – excellent stuff and well presented too!

My money is on Fouke if it was really Z he saw which to me sounds like it was. He got paid to be a trained observer and the only eyewitness to mention a ethnicity Welsh. The tells me he must have had a pretty good luck. So for those two reasons is why I lean towards his description.

3. Linda – Saw a man staring from besides a tree a good distance away. Did she ever provide details on the subjects appearance at that particular instance? No! Did she notice if he had glasses on at the time? No! What colour was his hair when she saw him besides the tree? Did he have a beard? However he was between 28-30.

There were three girls that day who described the guy. The did see him from a much closer vantage points as well. He even walked down and around the area they were sunbathing at–in the same manner "Zodiac" walked down to Bryan and Cecelia. They were very detailed when they described him and they were the ones who provided the composite drawing of the person they saw.

In regards to age, I think it’s safe to say Zodiac was not a teenager and not an old man. I don’t think his ACTUAL age, whether a little younger than 30 or a little older than 40, would hurt the investigation. This is why LE does not go by visuals alone.

Just adding to what I said above:

We don’t actually know whether Toschi/Armstrong spoke to Fouke and considered his description as well as the composite which was supposedly made independently of him (completely so). We don’t have the reports in which the latter would – possibly, not to say likely – be mentioned.

In fact, we have very little in the way of SFPD reports and other documents – which is a point well worth making, I think. Compared to the other crime scenes, we have annoyingly little when it comes to the Stine murder.

Anyway, more or less randomly (but, I guess, worth the bother to mention again):

Z was wearing pleated pants (or slacks), according to Fouke, and he even suggests (in one source) that it was an outdated/anachronistic sort of pants, i.e. clearly not something a younger man would be wearing normally.

Disregarding the Calif. DOJ report (which actually indicates a strong similarity between the pants worn by the Stine and the Berryessa attacker – but I don’t like that report, and I know Tahoe agrees with that ), we could say that based on both Fouke’s and Hartnell’s descriptions, Z was wearing old-ish and/or unshapely clothes, which might conceivably have some bearing on the age question: As I said above, the attire of a person is often (even though it shouldn’t be) significant when it comes to age determination.

Oh, and in the "for what it’s worth" category, we do know that Toschi didn’t put much stock in the Stine composite at all. For whatever reason. But it remains a fact that he did not.

Or (in regards to the attire) where he worked. Someone like a mechanic might dress more like that, but not in his everyday life. Not that I think Zodiac was a mechanic.

–I do agree about the DOJ report Norse.

I was a mechanic.From my experience the clothes we wore were different than everyday clothes.Except driving from work and back.If he traveled to (say) San Fran to the airports for work, he would be in his work clothes longer.But I do not think he was a mechanic. I believe his knowledge of cars came from books out of necessity.

Oh, and in the "for what it’s worth" category, we do know that Toschi didn’t put much stock in the Stine composite at all. For whatever reason. But it remains a fact that he did not.

Maybe his buddy Graysmith kept putting it in his head it can’t be right cause the sketch doesn’t show a severely balding male that was around 300lbs.

Maybe his buddy Graysmith kept putting it in his head it can’t be right cause the sketch doesn’t show a severely balding male that was around 300lbs.

Could be, could be.

But I do believe Toschi expressed doubts about it pretty early on – as in, before his buddy became obsessed with his severely balding suspect.

Let me just say, though, that I don’t think Toschi’s comment is definite in any sort of way – but if I’m right he was making the comment as a general sort of point more than a specific one, if that makes sense. Meaning, he didn’t attach too much importance to a composite created under the given circumstances – the latter being mainly about giving people a very general idea about what the suspect looked like, rather than a specific idea as to his features (which it would be…well, miraculous if A) the witnesses had been able to catch at that distance, in that light and B) the witnesses had been able to communicate to the sketch artist so well that he could produce an accurate likeness of the man). Not least given the fact that the sketch artist wasn’t, by all accounts, very good – to be blunt. The sketch is anatomically dubious, for one thing. Unless Z had facial features, proportions and ratios which have to be labeled extremely rare if not unprecedented in historical records, the composite is obviously not the likeness of the actual man no matter what way you look at it.