Also I have been thinking lately about the time duration between Lake B and P. Heights. Was Stine’s execution more than just another average Zodiac random homicide victim? Why was there such a short gap between each incident? What was his rush to go out and kill someone so soon after the previous attack? Was there an urgent need to eliminate Paul Stine for some reason? Or was it really just as simplistic as it appears on the surface, just another random crime by Zodiac with the intervening gap another random aspect of his kill spree?

I wonder what the average lifespan for serial murderers is?

I would assume that living such a stressful and dangerous "lifestyle" coupled with a potential for abnormal mental condition would decrease the lifespan.

Duckking2001,

You got me wondering whether actuarial statistics might actually exist for some comparable lifestyle. I believe there would be statistics by profession. Could there be a profession that one might consider comparable? International assassin? Undercover cop? They have to buy insurance, too, I suppose.

On a more serious note, though, I have read that true psychopaths often tend to remain abnormally cool in highly stressful situations as compared with us average types. That, btw, was one of three characteristics that were being used in recent years to try to identify children who were likely to grow up to be psychopaths. The other two, iirc, were lack of empathy and an interest in hurting small animals.

All this to say that psychopaths might not get as worn down by the stress of such a lifestyle as regular folk would. That said, the very fact that they don’t feel the stress to the same extent as others was said to be a factor that drives them to seek greater and greater thrills, which typically corresponds to an increase in risk-taking behavior. If that is true, the consequences of risk-taking behavior might tend to higher mortality levels, even if the stress doesn’t get them.

BTW, I do not know whether Z should be assumed to fit the psychopath profile. Diagnosing such things requires expertise I obviously do not have, but I have long suspected that he did not get freaked out by his close call at Presidio Heights as many have supposed. I have wondered if a need to increase his thrills might have led him to choose take such a seemingly high-risk venture. Z clearly took pride in his coolness under pressure. Whether that coolness was real or whether it was bravado, I cannot know with certainty, but if he did speak to the police just after the Stine shooting, I would be inclined to believe he was exceptionally cool under pressure.

Regards,

G

"BTW, I do not know whether Z should be assumed to fit the psychopath profile. Diagnosing such things requires expertise…"

Chief of Inspectors for the SFPD in 1969 Martin Lee didn’t seem to share that belief. He stated in one Chronicle article that Zodiac is not mentally ill and any and all charges that are brought against him upon his apprehension will be done so with his legally being fit to face them as fully sane.

I think if Zodiac really succeeded in pissing any LE officer off and if Zodiac’s sarcasm, piss taking and claims of incompetence were his way of casting out the proverbial fishing line for the opponent to bite, then Chief Lee took the bait hook, line and sinker. Lee seemed to have had enough of this thorn in their side and his braggart ways and wasted no time in blasting back via the Chronicle that in his opinion the self declared crack proof killer was actually stupidly clumsy, a liar and latent homosexual before later asserting in advance without any medical input or opinion that Zodiac is sane, and will be tried as such in the Courts.

Lee seemed to be a ‘no nonsense’ type of man who didn’t hold back on saying exactly what he though.

Was there an urgent need to eliminate Paul Stine for some reason? Or was it really just as simplistic as it appears on the surface, just another random crime by Zodiac with the intervening gap another random aspect of his kill spree?

He’d failed to murder two of his male victims. Maybe he needed to kill a man to ‘balance the books’.

…
My Dad is 71..he’s active, healthy and very much on the internet, so anything is possible with Zodiac. I just don’t think, today anyway, that he would post threatening stuff as the Zodiac killer. Innuendos maybe, but even that would be risky, imo. I think he’d be smarter than that….maybe…

Agreed. While we cannot safely reason from individual cases to general cases, I think it is sufficiently commonplace for people to live well into old age and also to remain mentally viable for a long time. My parents are both in their early eighties and going strong mentally. Chess grandmaster Korchnoi remained a serious threat well into his later years. Not sure if he is still playing today, but if he is, he can probably still kick ass on the chess board.

I take it as a working hypothesis that Z is still alive today. (No proof offered.) My bias is to suppose that Z was a highly intelligent individual with a strong interest in cultural matters, possible very well read, and something of a chameleon, with a tendency to adopt personas that don’t match our expectations, and to adopt personas in seemingly random ways. I don’t pretend to know how intelligent Z was, but I would consider it a capital mistake to underestimate him.

If Z does happen to be living today, I think it is very possible he would be very competent with today’s technology, and he may well have changed his behavior significantly from the Z of old. That said, I would be surprised if he weren’t still doing something to get her kicks.

Regards,

G

Was there an urgent need to eliminate Paul Stine for some reason? Or was it really just as simplistic as it appears on the surface, just another random crime by Zodiac with the intervening gap another random aspect of his kill spree?

He’d failed to murder two of his male victims. Maybe he needed to kill a man to ‘balance the books’.

One possibility I wouldn’t argue against. Maybe he wanted to prove he wasn’t a man venting the most hatred for females and reserved his specific attention for them and their murder. I’ve seen people claim that Zodiac didn’t seem as determined to kill Mike and Bryan, even that he didn’t intend to kill Bryan at all and it was all part if his script. Obviously the facts suggest otherwise. Like Mike said "He shot me and shot me and shot me." Then after he’d done that, reloaded and shot him some more with one bullet to the lower face and jaw area. Same with Bryan, stabbed 6 times minimum, and all in the back area where liver, kidney and through to lungs and even heart penetration is very possible if not likely.

I think both Bryan and Michael share very similar stories in that their survival was absolutely pure luck and nothing Zodiac failed to to or because he was incompetent in any way. Miracle Mike survived after being shot so many times and how the knife missed every vital organ in Bryans body only the divine can answer.

. I don’t pretend to know how intelligent Z was, but I would consider it a capital mistake to underestimate him.

Obviously that would be a foolish thing to even consider doing. Approaching Zodiac as an advisory from LE or General Public perspective would require the LE or Citizen to keep up with his latest game and never allow yourself to become complacent in your efforts because if you do, he’ll exploit that trait and lackadaisical attitude like the "2 cops who pulled the goof"

If Z does happen to be living today, I think it is very possible he would be very competent with today’s technology, and he may well have changed his behavior significantly from the Z of old. That said, I would be surprised if he weren’t still doing something to get her kicks.

I have no doubt his favourite past time would be the likes of these boards to amuse himself with who thinks when and why as well as what and where. I can imagine him sat at his Desktop PC staring though a more modern pair of spectacles laughing at that theory and finding that claim stupid but giving a nod of approval to this assumption and tipping his hat to that theory for being surprisingly close in it’s accuracy.

He’d probably have his most fun and best giggle at the cipher threads. He go through the 501 proposed key’s and the claimed messages that are contained therein. I imagine he would even himself be impressed and confused slightly at the elaborate methods and outlandish complexity of how people have tried to go about solving the ciphers. If there was nothing to decipher by way of meaningful legible message he’d probably have to walk away every 15 minutes to recompose himself and stop himself from continuing in the latest bout of uncontrollable laughter at such work and effort being plunged into something that doesn’t exist.

Read the review of Graysmith’s "Zodiac Unmasked" written by "A Customer" on Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/Zodiac-Unmasked-I … Descending

It is so strange, it could have been written by Z himself.

You’ll find these from time to time. Like the post by "MNVikingsforever" on Zodiac related youtube videos.

Read the review of Graysmith’s "Zodiac Unmasked" written by "A Customer" on Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/Zodiac-Unmasked-I … Descending

It is so strange, it could have been written by Z himself.

You’ll find these from time to time. Like the post by "MNVikingsforever" on Zodiac related youtube videos.

Just read the review from ‘A Customer’ and I have to say that based on Zodiac’s apparent egocentric attitude and arrogant way of speaking I don’t see that review being something Zodiac would likely say, but that’s only my opinion. If the reviewer said something like the following I would suspect it could be ‘Him: "The author is now going to try a second time to convince readers that Arthur Leigh Allen is the Zodiac as it seems he feels he failed to do it with his first yellow book. Having read the yellow book and now this follow up also, I can inform the readers that he’s still as wrong now in this second book as he was in his first pretty yellow one. Conclusion: Allen still isn’t the Zodiac, and Robert can publish another 500 books if he wants and we will discover that still, Arthur Allen is not The Zodiac."

If the real man behind the crimes and his alter ego ‘Zodiac’ both had the same or similar personalities then I just cant see him sitting back and watching someone else be accused (or as he would see it, take credit for) crimes he committed and being the Zodiac.
I’ve long suspected that whoever was behind these crimes did not simply invent a name, or pseudonym to refer to and be recognised as in the papers, I think ‘Zodiac’ the character was brought into existence rather like a writer would write a character into a film. He would have his own personality, way of speaking, attitude and is in itself, a whole separate identity. Was Zodiac as arrogant and confrontational in real life? Arrogant? Probably. Confrontational? No chance IMO..

As I’ve said repeatedly, I’m no graphologist, so those so inclined, feel free to criticize my comments. I think searching for Z’s identity in the unsolved ciphers is futile. Had he wanted to identify himself, he would have done so; his ciphers are intended to spin wheels better employed on productive tracks. IMO, he presented a cipher which was designed to be solved in order to sucker the gullible into attempting to solve ciphers that consist of random symbols.

As I’ve said repeatedly, I’m no graphologist, so those so inclined, feel free to criticize my comments. I think searching for Z’s identity in the unsolved ciphers is futile. Had he wanted to identify himself, he would have done so; his ciphers are intended to spin wheels better employed on productive tracks. IMO, he presented a cipher which was designed to be solved in order to sucker the gullible into attempting to solve ciphers that consist of random symbols.

I wasn’t being critical of your comment Dan, just offering my own opinion on what I personally would think or expect to hear if it was authored by Zodiac. You are just as likely to be correct and me wrong as vice versa. That’s why I said the following:

"I have to say that based on Zodiac’s apparent egocentric attitude and arrogant way of speaking I don’t see that review being something Zodiac would likely say, but that’s only my opinion.

I was just saying that I personally would have expected a far more sarcastic review if it were by Z, before being dismissive and critical of The Books Author. Not saying I am anymore likely to be correct than you are, just offering my own view.

There’s three A.Customer reviews on that page. gestr could you clarify which one you were referring to? I suspect it isn’t the first one?

I assume he means this one:

I discovered this book by reading about it on comedian Tom Voight’s subversively comical website actually run by Graysmith himself. All you do it search Robert Graysmith and go to his self titled website and you’ll arrive at partner Tom’s website.

Tom portrays a guy who pretends to have written Graysmith’s work and you need to have your own copy of Graysmith’s book to follow along with the mysteries Tom imagines. It really is fun to play along with the gag.

Tom, like the supposed Zodiac lives with his mother and has many of the same habits, so it’s not surprising that Tom may actually be a character in a play to create more discussions about Graysmith’s writing.

The book is thick with info as is the humorous website based on the book. Graysmith while very serious in his investigations is not so full of himself as to poke fun by creating controversy with his website.

Enjoy this book as all my students have.

But I shouldn’t presume to assume, should I.

-glurk

Have we ruled out Graysmith himself for this review? I certainly get why this review drew attention to itself but there are, unfortunately, no shortage of Zodiac impersonators out there and no shortage of Zodiac sightings on-line. Could be, might be, probably not. Tom was once an admitted Art Allen proponent but I don’t ever recall him claiming to have "written Graysmith’s work".