True!
Yes it’s difficult. That word "black"! Zodiac!
But then the 7’s as you say (including the car door sevens), and the "pointy" capital w’s which Mike_r mentioned earlier (although the lower case ones are nice and rounded), and the p’s and d’s which need to be rotated(!) to look right… and which do look right when rotated – some of the time.
But then the "candy cane" (whatever that means) f’s!
Hmmmmmmmmmmm – (pause for breathe) – mmmmmm.

The evidence labels on the clothes lines.

http://www.zodiackillerfacts.com/galler … hp?pid=286
http://www.zodiackillerfacts.com/galler … hp?pid=287

Even that is off Smithy because of the k. Not the 2 stroke vs 3 business but the overall space used in their constructions. Snoo’ks k’s are more ‘square’ , the space occupied by the arms is equaled pretty much by the upright whereas Zodiac’s have a longer upright creating more of a ‘rectangle’ of space use.

Put more simply, Snook’s k’s look closer to uppercase whereas Z’s look like lowercase. Especially when taken into context of the surrounding letters.

Trav, which one is off, the last one?
There’s that a-with-a-tail that’s been missing elsewhere, and there’s the correct inter-letter spacing, b-to-l and a-to-c. And that’s just one "k" we’re talking about, ain’t it?
Ho hum.
I like the last one. I don’t like the other three mind you.

This is what I meant Smithy. Remember ‘habits’ – Hal’s k’s are constructed more like uppercase k’s no matter where they are used in a word. The upright coming to the same height as the top of the the upper leg. Z’s on the other hand have a clearly raised upright which extends beyond the top of the upper leg and giving it a more ‘typical’ lowercase k shape.

Damn you, Trav, I know that’s what you meant.
I know – it’s because when Hal Snook wrote that report he disguised his k’s deliberately, knowing it was the one sample of his handwriting which would survive in the public domain, so there!

Well if POI’s have resorted to disguising their handwriting, as their handwriting then that’s not really playing fair. That’s baseball, that’s how NOT cricket it is.

It’s a big spanner that "K". I think I might have to go look at Ted K stuff again.
But I’m going to look at the other 25 characters upper and lower case first.

Dont see any matches

Difficult isn’t it.

have you looked at some of his letters, how they are different throughout the report? For example, his capital "A" has a couple different looks. At times it has a pointy top and at other times it has a boxed top. I’m not to fond about handwriting being a big deal in the case anyways, because nobody really knows if Z disguised his writing or not. I have several different styles or writing myself, and only a few letters look the same in any of my writing types… still, interesting to look at your find!!

Hi-

If Hal Snook’s handwriting did not look like Z’s, would anyone be interested in him? Does Horan have background on this guy like he was an attention seeker on the front pages of the local newspapers long before there was a Zodiac killer? Did he have a habit of writing on cars in felt tip or using Monarch sized paper? Did he live near one of the crime scenes and was spoken to by the police afterwards? Oh, wait. That is somebody else.

I have a funny feeling (and again, I can’t handle Horan’s "bitter, angry man" writing style, so I have not read his theory) that Hal Snook became a suspect as the letter writer only because his handwriting is close to Z’s. Am I making an incorrect assumption?

Mike

Mike – you haven’t read the beginning of this thread? The profile about Hal? Who was on-site at Berryessa, printing the door and the phone, running the crime lab, reading the FBI traffic and the police reports – a guy who used to work at newspapers, had friends in SFCO? Well, damn!
Yes, despite the fact that his handwriting hasn’t completely convinced us – and that includes me – he’s worth interest, yessum.
Oh! As a writer that is. I don’t think he pulled on a hood and stabbed people. Nope.

Hi-

I meant other than the fact that he ran the crime lab. Why did he want so much attention? What was his motive? What in his past tells you that this is something he’d do? how did he get the cooperation from SFPD to get the shirt? Like I said, other than his handwriting, what makes him the letter writer form a behavioral standpoint?

Mike

Mike – SFCO – the coroner’s office, not the police department – and was it "co-operation?" not likely! Whoever got that shirt stole it, I reckon.
The motive – the behavioural issues – ah well, we’d have to start at Riverside for that, no? I’ve got a LOT of theories, me.
Leaving old Hal aside for a second – why does anyone perpetrate a hoax?
This guy messed up one in the UK, big time. You’ve heard of him I’m sure.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wearside_Jack

Sorry to jump in here….I was thinking that there seem to be a lot of officers with various Zodiac traits–whether handwriting or style, spelling, etc.

Here is handwriting from Officer Waricher…more similiar traits. NOT that I think he was Zodiac.

Arrest that Waricher man!
And seriously, I think it was Tom Voigt (credit where it’s due! Ha!) who posted "We’re all taught to print like that" – and it’s true.
The labels on the clothes-line bags help out, they’re around here somewhere too, I know, but can anything be conclusively proven from samples of handwriting to "our" satisfaction, even if that’s done by a super-expensive and supposedly unbiased professional document examiner?
Well…… no, I don’t think so.
Why would you not be welcome jumping in?
Speaking of spelling, it’s recently been suggested that the mis-spellings in the first couple of letters might have been deliberately formulated to look like those made by Officer Richard Hoffman, btw. I rather liked that.

So I know what we are dealing with, do we know if Snook was on the scene before the handwriting was discovered? Or was he supposedly present with the murderer and wrote it at the time of the attack and then slipped back into town after writing on the car door? What if someone at the scene said that he discovered the handwriting and then Snook arrived? Had nobody noticed it before Snook got there?

Mike