Donald Fouke mentioned a semi limp. That is fact. You either choose to believe his account or choose to dismiss it.

Not in 1969 at the time of Paul Stine’s murder–when it would have mattered most. I think Fouke read ZU too many times and it got embedded in his brain. Joking of course.

Zodiac limping would have been an important thing to bring up then as he could have sustained an injury. Fouke only mentions him shuffling along. A big difference there, imo, but I still don’t see any relevance to it and find it almost humorous we are all debating this almost 50 years later. "He loped…NO..he limped"…

I suppose after debating Zodiac for countless years, inevitably every minutiae is being further broken down. There are only so many avenues to explore, unless we keep dragging up endless new suspects to create new topics.

I suppose after debating Zodiac for countless years, inevitably every minutiae is being further broken down. There are only so many avenues to explore, unless we keep dragging up endless new suspects to create new topics.

This is one thing that I can guarantee will continue to happen.
How many are there now? I lost count YEARS ago.

-glurk

Before long Glurk we will have mentioned everybody in the Bay Area at the time. It may eventually be easier to create a new thread naming people who are definitely not Zodiac.

Fouke called it a "shuffling lope".

This does not necessarily mean an injury, but he also could have chosen the word ‘gait’ instead of lope.

http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictio … fling+gait

Maybe the guy just walked weird.

It was stated in the Fouke interoffice memo of 11/12/69 after the Stein murder. Fouke states that the man he saw had a "shuffling lope, slightly bent foward, head down".

And what is a "shuffling lope"?

This is what Fouke says, forty years after the fact:

It was dark enough that his eyes were concealed. But you could say he sort of looked down. Perhaps this lumbering gait, sort of stumbling along, like a semi-limp, might have come up in my mind, because he was putting his head down when he spotted the police car, and turned into the entranceway of a house.

It’s completely unfounded, in my opinion, to interpret this as evidence – or even a proper indication – that Z was limping in any normal sense of the word.

There was something about the way he walked – which Fouke noticed. An impression, something which came up in his mind. To infer from this that Z was limping is highly dubious. And to infer from it that he had a permanent limp (or impairment, or whatever), which would have been noticeable at all times – well, we simply can’t do that, there’s no basis for it whatsoever.

Fouke called it a "shuffling lope".

This does not necessarily mean an injury, but he also could have chosen the word ‘gait’ instead of lope.

http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictio … fling+gait

Maybe the guy just walked weird.

I think Graysmith covered that one too.

Fouke called it a "shuffling lope".

This does not necessarily mean an injury, but he also could have chosen the word ‘gait’ instead of lope.

http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictio … fling+gait

Maybe the guy just walked weird.

This is what I’m starting to think as well.

It almost sounds like Z’s a….penguin! I’ve said it before and I say it again! Everyone to the South Pole that’s where My new suspect is!

And again this is just a fun little thread for people to peruse about Z’s walk who may not be as versed about the case and seek to learn different theories about this aspect. I’m DEFO just wanting it to be a fun place to throw around ideas and facts as well as long as they are stated as such. Friendly debate is fun debate anyone want to tangle with my penguin theory? Anyone?!?!? Jk lol

As far as the accounts taken from police reports verses the hindsight accounts unveiled by Graysmith:

I would not completely discount either versions of the victims accounts as long as it came from them. True, original descriptions of a suspect many times are more reliable as the description was fresh in the minds of the victims. However, I also know that when a person has multiple traumatic wounds and is fighting death there are some things that may not occur to them at that moment when struggling to give a description.

The three girls account most likely IMO was probably fairly accurate as they were able to see him and had no trauma to follow – they also had the benefit of all 3 having witnessed the same man and given the same description of him. For 3 different women their accounts of the mysterious man (albeit from a distance) are the same. Except Graysmith only mentioned one of the girls bringing up the limp – did the other 2 girls agree with her observation? How coerced her observation was on Graysmith’s part I don’t know.

The rest of the surviving and non surviving victims, I will take what they said In the police reports and what they said to Graysmith later to be credible Imo. Some things about an attacker come out immediately and some things take time to associate with an attacker.

I also agree that the kids who saw Z walk down Cherry St had a fairly decent look at him and they had not undergone the physical trauma that might inhibit them from paying attention to their surroundings/Z (much like the three girls at the lake and Fouke). Fouke was trained however to note things about a suspect/POI relating to the physical profile. I believe Fouke noting the lumbering shuffle leads me to believe Z was a stocky man with an odd frame that made him appear to walk strange, almost as if his feet labored to get off the ground IMO. Some people are heavy footed and some are light – I know when I walk down a hallway it sounds like the Kentucky Derby where as my sibling shuffles like Ozzy Osbourne.

Z sounds like he walks the way a pigeon toed, wide hipped/framed dude would walk, but not necessarily a fat dude per Se (which incidentally stocky/wide but not necessarily blubbery fat was a common description for Z among his victims).

However I can’t deny that gait is commonly effected by psychogical issues.

here’s a neat article about the psychiatric implications involved with walking gaits. Some very interesting info on all things that effect walking gate whether physical or psychological:

"Because gait reflects the integrity of higher brain systems, it has much to tell psychiatrists. In fact, the unaided observation of gait can tell the informed observer a great deal in a few seconds. A fairly complete assessment of balance and gait can be complete within two minutes, yielding a tremendous amount of diagnostic and prognostic information. This may be the most important examination in psychiatry outside of the mental status."

"Schizophrenia is consistently associated with mild Parkinsonism and ataxia, regardless of medications. Often the gait is slower, stride length shorter,21,22 and tandem gait mildly impaired.23,2"

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2922365/

FWIW I’ve never read Graysmith’s book. He seemed a little too intent/obsessed Imo (pot calling kettle over here I know lol)

Graysmith has been caught making stuff up and I don’t trust what he wrote in ZU. He sort of briefly threw One girls "version" out there–and to me, there is something fishy about that. He was trying SO hard to convince us of that damn shuffling-gaity lope matching Allen’s and witnesses.

(1) What about Kaczinski’s brother stating that "Ted walked funny"? Did/does Ted K indeed walk funny? (2) If a guy has a chronic ankle injury the partial limp can come and go at random, sometimes within the same walk.

The exact quote, from THE UNABOMBER AND THE ZODIAC: "Ted’s left foot is noticeably pigeon toed which affects the way he walks." — FBI Interview of David Kaczynski, February 21, 1996. I’ve never been able to find the actual interview.

However, there’s plenty of news footage of Ted where he appears to get around just fine. He certainly wasn’t hobbling around wherever he went.

The exact quote, from THE UNABOMBER AND THE ZODIAC: "Ted’s left foot is noticeably pigeon toed which affects the way he walks." — FBI Interview of David Kaczynski, February 21, 1996. I’ve never been able to find the actual interview.

However, there’s plenty of news footage of Ted where he appears to get around just fine. He certainly wasn’t hobbling around wherever he went.

How about the footprints at LB that supposedly indicated Z was rather heavy, due to the depths of the prints… did those prints indicate the suspect’s left foot was pigeon-toed?

Interesting question. I’ve only seen images of single prints. Also, I have no idea HOW pigeon toed Ted is supposed to be, Google "pigeon toe" and you’ll see some scary examples.