When I found my POI, of course I became more convinced.

You just posted in another thread that you don’t have any POIs.

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=4896&p=80094#p80094

"I don’t have any main suspects"

When I found my POI, of course I became more convinced.

You just posted in another thread that you don’t have any POIs.

http://zodiackillersite.com/viewtopic.p … 094#p80094

"I don’t have any main suspects"

Tom, it looks like you are quoting Regis_Phillies and attributing it to me. I’ve had a POI since December of 2010 when I had an epiphany about someone I knew. I’ve emailed you about him. Regardless, that was not a quote from one of my posts. Honest mistake, I’m sure. It happens to all of us. Happy Saturday!

Trying to re-rail the thread, I think it’s possible Zodiac stopped killed after Stine (as far as we know) is that the newspapers and police stopped giving him the attention he craved. He killed for the notoriety – to get his name in the paper. He realized after Stine that he didn’t need to kill to do this. He could just write letters.

I think the sent letters after the known ones, but LE asked the papers to stop publishing him. Attention was his fuel. When he stopped getting the fuel, he stopped killing.

This is why Zodiac is the most interesting serial killer to me. Killing wasn’t an urgent need of his. Killing was a means to an end. The end was having all the attention focused on him. That’s what got him off, not the act of killing.

Trying to re-rail the thread, I think it’s possible Zodiac stopped killed after Stine (as far as we know) is that the newspapers and police stopped giving him the attention he craved. He killed for the notoriety – to get his name in the paper. He realized after Stine that he didn’t need to kill to do this. He could just write letters.

I think the sent letters after the known ones, but LE asked the papers to stop publishing him. Attention was his fuel. When he stopped getting the fuel, he stopped killing.

This is why Zodiac is the most interesting serial killer to me. Killing wasn’t an urgent need of his. Killing was a means to an end. The end was having all the attention focused on him. That’s what got him off, not the act of killing.

I agree it’s possible he stopped killing, because as you mention the killing didn’t get him off. I think the Stine killing was supposed to be his masterpiece, but he left the scene with witnesses and possibly a police encounter. It was a close call for him and he got spooked. As you stated he realized letters work just as good at instilling fear, so he cranked it up a few notches to the school bus threat.

When I found my POI, of course I became more convinced.

You just posted in another thread that you don’t have any POIs.

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=4896&p=80094#p80094

"I don’t have any main suspects"

Tom, it looks like you are quoting Regis_Phillies and attributing it to me. I’ve had a POI since December of 2010 when I had an epiphany about someone I knew. I’ve emailed you about him. Regardless, that was not a quote from one of my posts. Honest mistake, I’m sure. It happens to all of us. Happy Saturday!

Sorry about that!

He changed for a few different reasons.

My belief is that he didn’t stop killing at all. The Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders were him. There are also many victims in the Valley (French Camp/Stockton/Sacramento) that he will be connected to. As well as unsolved cases in Alameda County, Contra Costa County and more in Nevada and Idaho.

He decided to move from the City after he killed Paul Stine. His focus on finding a new home and getting moved kept him occupied until 1973/74 when he reemerged again with fresh communications. In his new area, he couldn’t get away with being the odd fellow as much and his activities became spread wide throughout the region and seemingly more random. He still wrote though. A lot. He had a lot of time on his hands as he was living on disability from the VA and money he’d inherited from family. He was forced to retire from being a linguists professor in San Francisco and other schools due to his failing sight.

He just became more careful too. He didn’t brag about it anymore. But his letter writing intensified. He wrote to anyone and everyone who he thought might listen, not just to the newspapers. Mainly, his eyesight was deteriorating and he knew eventually he’d be forced to stop altogether. I believe he was alone. I believe he was too angry and controlling to ever have a companion. He died alone. He had to. His secret was too big to ever be able to get too close to anyone, even family.

He changed for a few different reasons.

My belief is that he didn’t stop killing at all. The Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders were him. There are also many victims in the Valley (French Camp/Stockton/Sacramento) that he will be connected to. As well as unsolved cases in Alameda County, Contra Costa County and more in Nevada and Idaho.

He decided to move from the City after he killed Paul Stine. His focus on finding a new home and getting moved kept him occupied until 1973/74 when he reemerged again with fresh communications. In his new area, he couldn’t get away with being the odd fellow as much and his activities became spread wide throughout the region and seemingly more random. He still wrote though. A lot. He had a lot of time on his hands as he was living on disability from the VA and money he’d inherited from family. He was forced to retire from being a linguists professor in San Francisco and other schools due to his failing sight.

He just became more careful too. He didn’t brag about it anymore. But his letter writing intensified. He wrote to anyone and everyone who he thought might listen, not just to the newspapers. Mainly, his eyesight was deteriorating and he knew eventually he’d be forced to stop altogether. I believe he was alone. I believe he was too angry and controlling to ever have a companion. He died alone. He had to. His secret was too big to ever be able to get too close to anyone, even family.

If he was occupied with settling in to his new location, do you think the body counts mentioned in the letters are accurate? About a year after the Stine murder, the 13 Hole Punch card is sent but The Exorcist letter in January ’74 claims 37 victims.

I think it is accurate.

How many unsolved cases are there that have been brought up here and on other sites that are suspected to have been committed by the Zodiac Killer? Does anyone have a list somewhere? I know the Santa Rosa Hitchhikers Murders added up to 21. I’ve found a few others myself that are still unsolved and have similar style as the Zodiac Killers style. I’ve seen a few other users dig up old cases and found something familiar to them in them. Would they add up to 37? At least? I will find out.

He changed for a few different reasons.

My belief is that he didn’t stop killing at all. The Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders were him. There are also many victims in the Valley (French Camp/Stockton/Sacramento) that he will be connected to. As well as unsolved cases in Alameda County, Contra Costa County and more in Nevada and Idaho.

He decided to move from the City after he killed Paul Stine. His focus on finding a new home and getting moved kept him occupied until 1973/74 when he reemerged again with fresh communications. In his new area, he couldn’t get away with being the odd fellow as much and his activities became spread wide throughout the region and seemingly more random. He still wrote though. A lot. He had a lot of time on his hands as he was living on disability from the VA and money he’d inherited from family. He was forced to retire from being a linguists professor in San Francisco and other schools due to his failing sight.

He just became more careful too. He didn’t brag about it anymore. But his letter writing intensified. He wrote to anyone and everyone who he thought might listen, not just to the newspapers. Mainly, his eyesight was deteriorating and he knew eventually he’d be forced to stop altogether. I believe he was alone. I believe he was too angry and controlling to ever have a companion. He died alone. He had to. His secret was too big to ever be able to get too close to anyone, even family.

The Zodiac is highly forensically aware because they have had forensic training, IMO. If he is LE then this variable could explain a degree of copycatting, inside knowledge to mislead and red herrings galore. Meaning he is probably responsible for BRS, LH and PH with the others independent events he is borrowing from to misled/take credit including Riverside and some other crimes. This hypothesis can gain more traction if more evidence points to the Zodiac being LE. In light of EARONS and JJD, I think this view of a failed-LE has huge explanatory power over the evidence more than it did when suggested decades ago. It’s always been here. So I always keep this in mind.

Anyway to your point. To bridge the Zodiac and SRHM you must explain the huge problem that they are completely different types of crimes. The Zodiac is a thrill killer like right out of the very novel he described – "A Most Dangerous Game". Sexual references from the Zodiac are limited and one needs to include Bates to read more of that. So one must somehow overcome this obstacle in a way that is a satisfactory, preferably one with a track record in true crime.

One way this can be done is to hypothesize that the Zodiac is a small group of people cooperating. The Zodiac crimes were thrill kills with a rapidly changing M.O because the murders just a means to an end which was the printing of communications in papers to embarrass society which offended them. That’s his signature with the added quirk he gets a kick from hiding clues to his identity. The SRHM are just one person of that group who went off to do their own thing. A split. So the other stopped, he didn’t. That is one way how to bridge the obvious conflict between these being very different types of crimes. The reason why the Zodiac victims were not sexually assaulted by him was because whatever dominant/submissive relationship they had in their game couldn’t incorporate it. Basically they didn’t have the privacy but got that with the SRHMs. That is one way to bridge things.

The evidence I have seen that the Zodiac is more than one person is in this handwriting analysis.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ZodiacKiller/c … attempt_2/

Read the conclusion. The writer is able to go between two noticeable styles across the spectrum of letters. So he is masking his own handwriting and has two different handwriting styles to switch between while continuing to hide his own. What makes more sense here is two people IMO. You will read people trying to explain this by split-personality disorder also.

So to bridge Zodiac with SRHM something like a split off from the original Zodiac grouping may explain it.

Could it have been that the zodiac had some accident that meant he couldn’t get around by himself? He might have liked to have killed more but physically couldn’t do it and so was reduced to writing his letters.

I believe he might have been in the coast guard. And began to move around a lot as time went on.

I think of Z more as a letter-writer who killed, than as a killer who wrote letters.

Here’s my idea. Completely wild conjecture, but it fits in with everything I know about Z.

I don’t think he killed Cheri Jo Bates. But he was intrigued by the case, and followed it in the press. When the killer sent out letters, Z saw what a fuss was made about it in the press. And he was fascinated. So he tried his hand at his own letters — I think he sent the second, handwritten set of letters himself. He LOVED the media attention that got.

Then he decided to try his own killing. His first killing was in an isolated spot, and he killed in the way that allowed for the quickest getaway — shoot them and run. He PLANNED to send a bunch of letters afterward, but he didn’t because he unexpectedly found himself to be terrified that he would be caught. It was his first murder and he was completely rattled.

But then months went by and no police came knocking at his door. He began to feel safer and safer — and to think that the police must be really stupid. So he decided to kill again — but to do it right this time. He again killed in a fairly isolated spot that allowed a quick getaway, but this time he was stayed calm enough to make a phone call. And to send letters. And to cause a huge storm of media. He loved this!

But then the Manson murders happened, and he found himself seriously upstaged. They were so brutal — and got so much press — that his little shootings seemed pretty insignificant in comparison. Z had to get back into the media spotlight, and in a spectacular way. He had to up his game to compete with the Mansons. So, he made a super-villain costume and upped the brutality with a knife.

I think he was shaken by the experience with the knife. It was too close-up, too personal, too messy. It left him shaken. He hated it (which is why he never did it again).

He felt like he needed to get back on his game. Get back to the high he felt after the second set of killings. So he decided to shoot a cabbie. It seemed like an easy way to get back on track.

However, it turned into a total disaster. He barely got away that night.

At this point, after two bad experiences, he decided that the risk of actually murdering people was too high. The letters were what he loved anyway. He gave up killing and focused on the letters.

Don’t ask me to prove this, because I couldn’t even come close to doing it!

Sounds believable to me.

The Presidio murder went wildly out of control for the offender.
The murdered cabbie had not placed the car in park, so it began rolling forward when his lifeless foot fell off the brake. Adrenaline spurts through him as his fresh crime scene goes haywire.
The offender had to improvise quickly to get out from the back seat to front and stop the cab while the body bled on the seats. I think the offender reflexively pocketed the cab keys after he negotiated the runaway car to a stop.
Offender stayed focused on taking his trophy in the bloody shirt – the tool to prove he is indeed the killer in his future communications. (Previously certain cops had questioned the authenticity of his murderous letter writings).
Offender possibly even noticed the young faces watching him from windows across the street as he completes his mission – more adrenaline. He keeps cool and walks calmly off out of sight but minutes later a lit squad car comes roaring at him and his adrenaline goes volcanic yet again, but he escapes.

The high stress and near capture in this event put the shy on the offender and he never wanted to come that close again. So he decided to retire the highly public persona.
Whether he stopped killing is another question.
All of the above is IMO.

The murdered cabbie had not placed the car in park, so it began rolling forward when his lifeless foot fell off the brake.

There’s literally no evidence to support that nonsense.

The murdered cabbie had not placed the car in park, so it began rolling forward when his lifeless foot fell off the brake.

There’s literally no evidence to support that nonsense.

Hence the IMO at the end of my post which you seemed to have not read.