johns – unrelated. she’s a kook who made up the whole thing.

All of it? Or do you just mean she misidentified the Zodiac wanted poster as her abductor?

i’m trying to come up with the *simplest* way for the hoax theory to work. i welcome assistance from the humble masses:

I remain humble. Ahem. I’ll play.

"CJB – riverside pd says it’s not related, so to keep it simple we’ll agree."
RPD don’t think the crimes are related. They may not even believe in the Zodaic Killer at all. What about that huh?
Do they think the letters are related? Gee, I wonder. The handwriting is great and it’s (probably?!) got some shorthand GREGG symobol on the bottom of one of their letters. The GREGG thread is interesting.
If the CJB letters are a try-out for a later letter campaign, that makes a lot of sense. The "six months after the event" timescale compares well to LHR, too. Our guy tries to claim a crime because it’s big, famous and going stale – and he fails. To throw out CJB is to throw out both baby and bathwater. IMO.

"LHR – teenage rival shoots both kids."
Who Ricky? Makes no sense. Probably some drugged-up losers, trying to sell. They may even have stopped to BUY some blow from straight-arrow David. He would not have been amused, huh? If the point is that it’s not related to CJB, then that’s just fine.
BTW – why’s there no call immediately after the crime huh? No letter, huh? If that’s the MO – then why not? SO he could wait for six months again? See if it was solved? Like RIverside? Mmmmaybe.

"BRS – drug rival or jilted lover (or husband) shoots both and, in an attempt to keep the heat off of himself makes the call to le to try to tie in the lhr shooting (which our brs shooter did NOT commit) which had made the papers and looked likely to remain unsolved."
It’s simpler if the letter writer made that call; it’s his MO, after all. He writes letters and makes telephone calls claiming crimes.
There’s enough coincidence at Berryessa, We don’t need any more!

"After BRS a reader of the local papers or someone close to LE comes up with the idea of taunting the cops and general public via letter writing. realizing lhr and brs aren’t likely to be solved, the writer lays claim to both. when asked for more info, the writer decides to make a sport out of the writings and continues on as "the zodiac". the ciphers and rotating motives, threats, etc are an attempt to create a persona for the writer’s character of zodiac."
This wasn’t a new idea, born right after BRS. It goes back to 1966 – to Riverside. The writer mentions a call, back then. He wrote three letters back then. He tried to pull in the local newspaper, back then. This is attempt #2 that we know of. There may have been – uh, more.

"LB – someone separate from our writer, inspired by the "zodiac" persona attempts to imitate the zodiac. This hoaxer, having read plenty about the zodiac’s mo, leaves the note on the car in an attempt to mimic zodiac’s tendency to correspond. additionally, mimicking brs the hoaxer calls le and lays claim to the shooting. our letter writer, not wanting to take too much credit in case lb is solved, does briefly insinuate he was the killer at lb."
THIS makes the hoax angle simplest? Someone ripped off the MO and was a fantastic forger, so wrote on the door? Made the call? Not for me.
Simplest – some loony-toon ripped off the newspaper MO very (comic-book) badly – he wore a hood (ha!) and he preferred to use a knife – and our letter writer got there quickly. Because it was his job to? That’s a reasonable bet. He wrote on the door. He made that call, too.

"San fran – our letter writer realizes that le and the papers are having a hard time discerning which zodiac letters are real and which are fake. he looks for an opportunity to steal evidence from a crime scene. the stine cab shooting presents a perfect opportunity. stine’s shooter is a neighborhood punk looking for a quick cash grab. once he shoots stine he does take part of the shirt to wipe down the cab. for whatever reason the shirt is left unguarded at some point and our writer is able to quickly grab a swatch to include with his letters."
I don’t think Stines killer took any short at all, but yes, for the hoax to remain feasible (some would laugh at that!) the letter-writer took some, yep.

— the whole thing breaks down significantly for me with san fran. i can’t see how someone would have had access to stine’s shirt that quickly unless our letter writing hoaxer was le or had access to the morgue, etc. i welcome additions, subtractions, and reprimands.
Maz – opinions are wonderful things! IMO if it breaks, it breaks at Lake Berryessa. I could get lucky at a property room or a morgue or wherever a piece of crime property was left unattended, once in fifty tries, myself. Maybe.
But if I started a letter campaign and created a phony serial killer, would someone then read about it and turn up dressed the part and stabbing – at a location I could quickl enough for me to reach? Welllll!
hat’s the stretch for me – but hey – don’t let me talk you out of it – I’d have one less person to fun with!

Hello Smithy,
Thanks a bunch for the BM nickname.

BM – my pleasure! And yes, the hoax theory’s tough.
I started with the 340 a long old time ago, learnt as many facts as I could about the case to "help" with trying to attack the cipher – and was about as sarcastic as I could be to Mr Horan when he showed up on Mike Butterfield’s board. To my horror I then realised that oh dear, there are lots of different MO’s, lots of different physical descriptions, very little tangible evidence – and that I was feeling slightly sick at the thought of being blind-sided. So I’m looking at it – very hard – still. It’s not for everyone. For some, the very idea erodes their passion for justice against a single perpetrator and their reasons to be on a board at all. Terribly. I appreciate that. Bucky may be one of those people – he’s certainly not taking any opposite opinion seriously; fair enough!

A hoaxer would have to have fast and easy access to Stine’s shirt…

Yes. He’d have to have a reason to be in or around the evidence from a recent crime. Like, uh, a reporter or a member of law enforcement, or a member of LE’s family with a very sick and twisted sense of fun and an excuse to hang out with the cops on a very regular basis.

… and Hartnell’s VW. He also had to know somehow which car Hartnell was driving… how lucky he picked the right one?

How many were there to choose from when he got to the scene do you think? Ignoring the ambulance and the cars with the lights on the top, I think perhaps it was easy. Say – did he have to KNOW it was Hartnells car – or did it just have to be a car in the immediate area, anyway? Supposing he’d written on a wall, or on the road….?

Then imagine how amazing it is, that the perp at Lake Berryessa helped him out with his letter hoax campaign by wearing the Zodiac costume thingy majiggy. Odds on all that coming together are low…. real low. I’ll leave it at that.

Not all that together – no. But Lake Berryessa? Yes – that’s the big flaw. That’s the biggest most painful nuisance. Someone in northern california was a psychotic nutcase and he read the papers, adopted the symbol, and then he went off to stab someone. Damn.

smithy – great response. for the record i do NOT believe the letters were part of a hoax, i was just playing the "what if" game. i think we’ve shown that plausibility ends both at lb and with stine’s shirt. any theory i can come up with is more implausible than the killer being the same person as the writer of the letters.

Someone in northern california was a psychotic nutcase and he read the papers, adopted the symbol, and then he went off to stab someone. Damn.

And seemingly he signed his work on the car door. To me, at least, it takes some considerable effort to demonstrate how someone other than the killer could have done it. How did he know where Bryan’s car was? I’d like a detailed explanation here, taking into account that anyone who acted on something they had picked up on a police scanner may not have known the exact location.

And his penmanship is similar to whoever wrote the letters – to what extent it is similar may be discussed further, but it’s clearly similar.

Someone also made a call from the Napa car wash, which is undoubtedly connected to these events.

Three components: Attack, writing, phone call.

Proposing that a copycat attacked them and then proceeded to write on the door presents the following problem: He attacked them and killed one of them. The non-killer/letter writer theory has to be scrapped.

Proposing that a copycat attacked them and then left, without writing on the car door, presents the following problem: How did the writer know where Bryan’s car was? And: Did the letter writer make the phone call? And if he did, why did he claim a double murder? There was no double murder and no dispatch would have reflected this. Both BH and CS were alive and conscious until they were taken to the hospital. The person who attacked them intended to kill them. He stabbed them both multiple times. For him to claim a double murder makes sense. For anyone else – someone who listened in on a police scanner – not so much. Or, in fact, not at all: Again, they were both alive and conscious.

Proposing that three different people were involved, the attacker, the writer and the caller – none of whom were connected – is just plain ridiculous on the face of it. It needs a detailed explanation beyond anything we’ve ever seen.

The two most likely options for me are these:

1. It was the canonical Z.

2. It was some nutjob who did the whole thing, including the phone call, and who had nothing to do with anything else.

The first option is out for the hoax angle. The second one works, but seems sort of…I don’t know: The hoaxer faked everything else, but he had nothing to do with LB? Apart from a tiny and ambiguous reference? Rather than milking it for all it was worth? Doesn’t strike me as likely.

and Hartnell’s VW. He also had to know somehow which car Hartnell was driving… how lucky he picked the right one?

How many were there to choose from when he got to the scene do you think? Ignoring the ambulance and the cars with the lights on the top, I think perhaps it was easy. Say – did he have to KNOW it was Hartnells car – or did it just have to be a car in the immediate area, anyway? Supposing he’d written on a wall, or on the road….?

You really think some letter writer hoaxer heard a report of a murder on a police scanner and decided to pack up his gear, drive to the scene, get out and write on the victim’s car door(or someone else’s car, or rock, or tree) while police are crawling all over the area? LOL, really?

while police are crawling all over the area?

and … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QTtXqDjNP4#t=67

smithy – great response. for the record i do NOT believe the letters were part of a hoax, i was just playing the "what if" game. i think we’ve shown that plausibility ends both at lb and with stine’s shirt. any theory i can come up with is more implausible than the killer being the same person as the writer of the letters.

Mazzer – thanks! And fear not, I’m aware of your underlying opinion, believe me. I get that a lot! I’m not looking for converts, just a sounding board.
Plausibility is stretched really really thin at Lake Berryessa – a nutcase turned up. Ackowledged.
The shirt – that’s very different.
If the writer did not believe he would and could get access to the materials to support his hoax letters at some point – he probably would not have undertaken to write them in the first place.
It’s chicken first, not egg, that shirt. (How’s that for a mixture?)

Someone in northern california was a psychotic nutcase and he read the papers, adopted the symbol, and then he went off to stab someone. Damn.

And seemingly he signed his work on the car door. To me, at least, it takes some considerable effort to demonstrate how someone other than the killer could have done it. How did he know where Bryan’s car was? I’d like a detailed explanation here, taking into account that anyone who acted on something they had picked up on a police scanner may not have known the exact location.

I was hoping to receive a possible one rather than have to try and provide one. If I provide one it’s not a debate or an exchange – it’s me being an evangalist. That would be tiring for us both (all!) and probably already is. *sigh* Anyway, I offer:
1) The letter writer got to that scene and wrote on that door. Anything else (the attacker was an expert forger even while covered in blood, hyperventilating with excitement) – seems a little stoopid, don’t it.
2) How many cars were at the scene – let’s count them. Ummm, the one the writer turned up in (presumably – unless he was in a police car or an ambulance) -the LE vehicles and Bryans. It wasn’t a Sears parking lot. Not a wide choice…. And:
3) He wrote on Bryans – the only one there that fitted the kind of car likely to be being driven by a couple of college kids. Parked very very close to the attack scene. Any aspiring detectives on this thread? Think you might have also found it? I think perhaps you would.
4) Depending on the time he arrived at the scene – information about what had happened had already been shared; that blabbering Ranger White (who was miking up dialogue as well – go watch the vids) would have been a damn good source for a roving reporter. Or a member of LE arriving at the scene…. If you don’t believe in scanners.
5) Scanner? I don’t know. Maybe. I like the human touch, personally. But there was a scanner in use at Lake Herman Road. Anyone remember?
6) Why three components undertaken seperately? Attack, writer, phone call? Again – the MO from Riverside was write and call. Why not at the Lake? Because he would have needed to acquire the information earlier in the process? I don’t think that’s a stretch.

Nope – the stretch is that it’s a nutcase at the lake. Damn.

Buckwheat – "LOL really" – uh, no. I’m not a fan of the scanner- although yes, that just might have been what drew him.
Did you read any of the other stuff I wonder? Damn – I may need to ignore you as a spammer, when you might have been able to offer something constructive, even if it was negative. Rats!

Trav – I hope that’s a splendid and appropriate vid., ‘cos if it’s just another pi**-take, then I might have to accuse you of being an immoderate moderator….. know what I mean?

Trav – I hope that’s a splendid and appropriate vid., ‘cos if it’s just another pi**-take, then I might have to accuse you of being an immoderate moderator….. know what I mean?

Nope on the latter. What I was thinking (might have made more sense to say it with words n stuff) was, as BWF points out there’s police around, eventually, but there’s an actual real life killer there and he’s dressed in homage to the hoax you (our phantom hoaxer) are creating. Motives and insanities aside, isn’t it rather risky to be that close in both proximity and timing to someone who actually is stabby and potentially shooty?

It’s a bit insane really is it not? Not the idea but to actually do that. Our hoaxer would have to be a bit biccies or stupid. Is it easier to not have him there? So what about the door? Well I can see, given my own train of thought how, for a hoax theory to be implemented it makes (slightly) more sense for it to have been done at a time of less immediate danger. I assume this was how Snook came to be fingered, as they say.

Is there another option. Well I guess it would have to be that the killer did all of it and as such became in essence the instrument by which the hoax became a reality. He committed the murder/attack, hoaxed the info on the door in both content and style and then toddled off to make the phone call. I’m tempted to allow for the hoaxer to have made the call but the murder/double murder thing convinces me it was the killer based on BH playing dead and CS being assumed unlikely to make it. That correction, for me, lines up with the apparent state of the victims at the time of the assailant’s departure.

So yeah, that’s were I’ve got to so far. Option three makes more sense in the hoax scheme also given that there’s no mention of or reference to that attack in the letters. Unless "North Bay area" covers that? I don’t know or it’s in the 340 (God help us on that one).

Damn – I may need to ignore you as a spammer, when you might have been able to offer something constructive, even if it was negative. Rats!

You wouldn’t be the first and I’m sure you won’t be the last. I’ve tried to put myself on ignore a few times, but that voice in my head is too overpowering.

Can’t really buy into the hoax scenario all that much especially with Lake Berryessa. Now if you want to put forth a team/group at LB I could possibly stomach the idea but even then why are we going to such elaborate lengths in creating a narrative for what took place on 9/27/69.

It’s possible that later letters could be a hoax/falsified but as for the earlier ones there doesn’t seem to be good reason for a hoax. Zodiac team is conceivable at least. The hoax line of thinking strains credulity.

I would say the only reason for a costume would be if you were unsure if there would be other witnesses there. If this place was semi-frequented by people in the area and Z knew that, then there would be reason to wear a hood so anyone that happened by would not be able to ID you….that or maybe Z knew them on some level, or had met them at some point and did not want them to know it was him.

There seems to me to be another possibility: Zodiac was simply not sure of being successful in killing his targets after confronting them.

It was essential for Z to carry a pistol to the scene: if he’s a lunatic with just a knife, the targets are going to run and/or fight without Z guaranteeing to get the jump on them. So he needed them to be tied up. So he needed a gun to get them to tie each other up, or at least for the main threat (the guy) to get tied.

But I don’t believe Zodiac ever had any intention of using the gun, except as a last resort, and that means defensively, not as a tool of murder. I suspect that Hartnell’s hunch was actually right, just not in the way he expected. He wondered if the gun was really a bluff, and I suspect that it was. What’s the main reason that Z uses a knife as the killing weapon at Berryessa? You can theorize that he wanted a more thrilling, personal experience when he killed, but the main pragmatic reason is sound. At Berryessa, Z doesn’t have the realistic possibility of committing a shooting then hopping into his car quickly. More than that, the real risk for him is that soon after he fires that gun, the cops could be called, and then the clock is ticking on the net closing as cops set out from Napa (and possibly other areas). There really are only a few routes in and out of that area. To be safe, Z has to get out of that net before it even starts closing, and that means having a substantial head start. The best tool is a silent (or much quieter) kill weapon. Screams may seem loud, but they’re nowhere near as loud as gunfire.

Which brings me back to my original point: if Hartnell and Sheperd had simply run for their lives instead of obeying Zodiac’s instructions, his bluff would have been called. At that point he would have been forced to decide whether he was going to play his hand and shoot them, or to fold and run back to his car. The latter could have been the more prudent move (especially if they run and hide, giving him time to get out of there while they’re cowering in the bushes). And if that had happened, Z would NOT want the couple to have seen his face.

Berryessa was a much riskier attack than LHR or BRS. Zodiac knew that.

Admittedly, this does not explain why Z has a kind of supervillain outfit rather than a simple ski mask. Maybe he thought that if he was going to do it, he might as well do it in a cool (to him) way.

Of course, there is also the possibility that he didn’t care too much if Hartnell lived rather than died, in which case the mask and supervillain outfit would both be advantageous.