He could have used one of those rubber fingertip covers that you see used in offices when someone is flipping through pages or maybe it was a thimble!

AK Wilks…

This is true Wilks. The more prints that are claimed, but don’t match, the worse the situation, not the better.

LE seems pretty confident that they have Zodiac’s prints. But if they have over 30 prints and none of them match up, than I would question it. I don’t see Z being stupid enough leaving prints on the letters. I think he was clever enough to leave false prints on them.

Interesting article about fingerprints in Z cases:

http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_kill … ce_11.html

QT

What amazes me is that this information has been out for AGES, and people STILL doubt that ANY of the prints are legit.

How legit are Kelleher’s claims? Anyone know who he is? If what he is saying is true than not one POI discussed in a Zodiac Killer forum up to July of 2012 is considered a viable suspect according to LE. Who does that leave? I believe Ross Sullivan is pretty recent.

California has its own ‘palm print database’ that started up in 2004. Anybody know if any questioned Zodiac palm prints have been fed into it?

Interesting article about fingerprints in Z cases:

http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_kill … ce_11.html

QT

What amazes me is that this information has been out for AGES, and people STILL doubt that ANY of the prints are legit.

How legit are Kelleher’s claims? Anyone know who he is? If what he is saying is true than not one POI discussed in a Zodiac Killer forum up to July of 2012 is considered a viable suspect according to LE. Who does that leave? I believe Ross Sullivan is pretty recent.

I’m not sure what Michael Kelleher has to do with anything? Isn’t that article by Jake Wark?

I’ve never talked to Jake, and correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t he a former police officer? I’m pretty sure that he has interviewed people who worked the case and SFPD members. I don’t recall ever seeing anything from him that was not factual and verified by source.

Mike K. is an author and I think some sort of criminal psychologist. He wrote a book about Zodiac and was a member of some Z sites. He’s admitted his book had some errors, but I would consider him knowledgeable about the case. If he has any previously unknown information, as far as I know he hasn’t shared it with us.

So have the prints referenced in this article (and the police reports) been compared to each other? ie do the prints of interests all appear to have come from the same person?

*** Sorry I missed page 2 of this thread – asked and answered-.

So have the prints referenced in this article (and the police reports) been compared to each other? ie do the prints of interests all appear to have come from the same person?

*** Sorry I missed page 2 of this thread – asked and answered-.

None of the prints match. I’ve heard LE have up to 35 different prints that could possibly be Z’s. Apparently they all come from different fingers or parts of the palm, so even though none match, some could be from the same hands.

So have the prints referenced in this article (and the police reports) been compared to each other? ie do the prints of interests all appear to have come from the same person?

*** Sorry I missed page 2 of this thread – asked and answered-.

None of the prints match. I’ve heard LE have up to 35 different prints that could possibly be Z’s. Apparently they all come from different fingers or parts of the palm, so even though none match, some could be from the same hands.

Oops didn’t read the part where you said your question was answered

How many fingerprints are there? According to the available files, there are two fingers lifted from the passenger side door of Ferrin’s car. According to an article in the Chronicle (no byline) Mike said the door was "torn open" by the shooter. That entire article is based directly on Hoffman’s report from the wee hours of July 5—except, in that report, Hoffman says Mike says the window was rolled own, and that he, Mike, opened the door using the outside handle, because he had trouble using the inside handle. Zodiac’s second letter (August 2) seems intended to correct the Chronicle article by stating "the window was rolled down all ready." No other newspaper had made that mistake. (According to his letters, the Zodiac apparently read the Chronicle, Examiner, Napa Register, and Vallejo Times-Herald. Not the News-Chronicle or Daily Republic. So he may have lived in Napa and probably did not live in Vallejo or SF.) As late as October 17, Napa Undersheriff Tom Johnson was telling reporters that police believed the prints on the car door handle were the killers. There is zero record of anyone deciding those prints belonged to Mike. So who knows?

Prints of a left hand palm and fingers were photographed and lifted from the phone booth in Napa. Because the Napa dispatcher never heard anyone pick up the phone, it is assumed that those prints belong to the caller. Several unidentified prints from the passenger door area of Bryan’s car were also lifted. None of them matched the phone booth.

Lots of prints were lifted from various door handles and fenders of Stine’s cab. Claims have been made about "elimination prints" being taken of ambulance personnel, etc, but zero actual confirmation of those claims. Untrue claims have been made about various "bloody" prints lifted from the dash, seat, etc, but the prints of a left hand, including palm and fingers, were lifted from the frame around the drivers door window. One of those fingers pressed down onto a tiny drop of blood spattered on the door. Did the killer open the drivers door? Only Pelissetti’s woefully brief summary of the witness statements has ever come to light, and it does not mention the killer opening the drivers door. It also doesn’t mention a whole bunch of things, so who knows?

As late as October 17, Napa Undersheriff Tom Johnson was telling reporters that preliminary examination of all available prints revealed strong similarities between the prints at BRS, LB, and Stine. On Ocotober 23, the FBI concluded, "No, they don’t." Did Johnson or Townsend correct themselves? Nope.

Hamlet did notice that one print, the tip of the left ring finger of the hand that was wrapped around the window frame of the drivers door of Stine’s cab matched the corresponding area of the same finger of some prints found on the little list letter. Not enough of the common area was present in both prints to add up to a legally conclusive match. So, who knows?

And that’s it. Graysmith and others have claimed that Snook "botched" the prints on the Napa phone booth, but the associated FBI report declares that the photos they looked at were just fine for comparison. Do the left hand palm and fingerprints from the phone booth match the left hand palm and finger prints from the cab? According to the FBI’s report of October 23, nope.

Do any of Allen’s prints match any of the prints from any crime scene or letter? Nope. Nor do anyone else’s. How about the little list letter? Apparently, the Chronicle let just anyone handle Zodiac letters, because a lot of them are plastered with prints from lots of people. Is it possible a Chronicle reporter snooped through Stine’s cab AND touched at least one Zodiac letter? It sure is. Is it possible that someone besides the killer called Napa police AND that someone besides the killer opened Stine’s door? It sure is. Is it possible the Chronicle reporter who said Mike said the killer "tore open" the door had a carbon of Hoffman’s report and just lied about that one tiny little detail, anyway? It sure is. VPD believed at least for a while that he did, so someone besides Hoffman must have said so. Did the killer open the door? Who knows?

Is it possible that a reporter snooped through Stine’s cab while it was left in the parking garage AND snooped through the crime lab while his clothes were laid out to dry? It sure is. Keith Power filed a story October 16 in which he quoted information from Stines trip sheet. Where’d he get it? He says the trip sheet shows Stine picked up his last fare at Mason and Geary. A story in the Examiner two days later says police were swarming over Nob Hill, in the area of the Fairmount Hotel, four blocks north of Geary, looking for witnesses who may have seen the killer get in Stine’s cab. The trip sheet is not mentioned in Schwartz’s inventory of the evidence from the cab. It’s not in any of the photos or videos of the box of evidence. So, where did Power get it? So, yeah, it is definitely POSSIBLE that Power snooped through the cab, took the trip sheet, and later touched a Zodiac letter. After his big "scoop," (he says in that story that the stated destination was "Washington and Maple." In other words, the trip sheet supposedly confirmed Zodiac’s little booboo about the location of the crime scene. Did he really see the trip sheet? Where is it now? Who knows?) Power disappeared from the Zodiac story and was replaced by Avery. Why? Ask him. He’s still alive. Graysmith quotes information from Power’s stories, but doesn’t mention his name. Why not? Ask him. He’s still alive. He says Bob Popp was the Chronicle reporter covering the HOJ in October 1969, but Popp covered Oakland PD until 1971. Why would he lie about who was covering HOJ in October, 1969? Ask him.

In those days, reporters still competed with police to solve crimes. The Examiners Ed Montgomery won a Pulitzer Prize poaching evidence, witnesses, and leads through bribery, evidence tampering, and eavesdropping. So, yeah, it’s possible.

Keith Power is still alive and writing about wine. He lives around Napa. Somebody ask him.

The more I hear about this, and the obvious police incompetence in this case; the more I question where they in on it?

The more I hear about this, and the obvious police incompetence in this case; the more I question where they in on it?

Well, keep in mind three things: 1. Very few cops in those days got much training. 2. Except for the Stine murder, we’re talking SMALL police and sheriffs departments. And until recently, when Detroit finally passed them by, SFPD has ranked as the worst, most corrupt PD among all "big city" police departments decade after decade. They didn’t get better; Detroit got worse. 3. A conspiracy would require competence. Which none of these departments had.

But also, keep in mind, there is no other murder case in history where the actual files are available for us to read. So for all we know, this is par for the course. And it’s clear that plenty of media hype about these murders went uncorrected. Did Johnson lie to reporters when he said that fingerprints from BRS, LB, and Stine all matched? Was he lied TO? Did the reporter lie? Who knows? All we know is, the prints don’t match. The only person outside the FBI in a position to lie to Johnson (or jump to a premature conclusion) was Hal Snook. Snook taught courses in crime scene and lab techniques, so if he couldn’t tell chicken salad from shinola, who could? Maybe he just got fooled. Maybe he was tired. Or maybe reporters just quoted the most entertaining cops and the rest just got left on the cutting room floor. Toschi, Narlow, and Mulanax all regaled reporters with taller and taller "Zodiac" tales over the years. Baldino and Gordon just flat out lied. So has Pierre Bidou. On too of all of that, there are still a few pages of the files which are still unavailable.

I vote for plain old incompetence with a healthy shot of publicity hunger aided and abetted by the Chronicle. The Chronicle themselves never got their story straight about which letters did or did not contain pieces of Stine’s shirt. And they are the ONLY witnesses about it. I wonder how many times Zodiac walked into SFPD or VPD or wherever and turned himself in and nobody knew enough about the case to verify his story.

Yesterday I found more pictures of my father on classmates.com. He was in the Clarkston-Adams ’54-’57 yearbooks (Clarkston, WA.) I was just interested in what he looked like and how long he went to Clarkston schools). I found it interesting that he was in the "Aircraft Club" for a couple years. This club was to educate the students in aviation and to give them the opportunity to make airplane models. Seeing this just made me think about the Zodiac putting airplane glue on his fingertips to avoid leaving fingerprints. This may not mean anything but I thought I would mention it anyway.

Sorry people, I failed to mention I was referring to my father, George Saxberg

Toni, please put all posts about your Father, in this thread about your Father:
viewtopic.php?f=47&t=1503