SEE MY RESPONSES BELOW IN RED:

Mike – yes, those are all the issues. If you believe that the ENTIRE thing was a hoax, the problems seem insurmountable. That’s about where I (still) am too,
But we need to be careful how high we stack it.

"Lake Berryessa murder scene, writing found on car door. This writing matches confirmed Zodiac letter writing. The attacker wore a hood with zodiac crosshair symbol."
Yes. Doesn’t that suck. It seems to indicate at least that the letter writer had something to do with the appearance of a killer. Not that he himself was a killer, necessarily. It also seems to show that he wrote on that door. Well, if the writer’s Hal Snook, then sure he could have, no problem.

It would be a miracle if Snook was the Z letter writer, and he just happened to write on a car door at a crime scene in which the attacker wore a Z crosshair symbol on his hood.
"* Paul Stine murder- letter is sent in containing bloody short piece, and writing is confirmed to be Zodiac’s, which matches the Lake Berryessa car door."

So? Yes, there’s a crime scene the writer needed to be present at. One. There’s the San Francisco Coroner’s office that he needed to be able to gain access to.
If he’d Hal Snook and runs the Napa crime lab, why would professional courtesy not allow him access? That’s not an insurmountable leap either.

Just because something is possible, doesn’t make it likely. Ever hear of a person who’s skydives and their parachute doesnt open after a jump from very high up? 99.9% of the time they die, but of course, we have the 00.1% chance of them somehow surviving like we see on the news every so often, but overwhelmingly, it’s not likely they live. So again, just because Horan’s theory is theoretically possible, doesnt make it likely. ….see Ocams Razor.
Paul Stine was killed Saturday night, 10/11/69. The Zodiac mailed a letter Monday, 10/13/69 including the shirt piece. Seriously, do you really think that Snook went to SF Coroner’soffice on Monday morning (assuming it was not open on Sunday),got access to the shirt, and then ran out and mailed the letter in time to get postmarked that day? It’s laughable…it’s rediculous, and it completely discredits the theory,or at least that Snook was involved.
"We have multiple crime scenes, in multiple jurisdictions, with physical evidence & writing linking these cases to each other."
What physical evidence? A shirt and some writing on a door? And on the other side of the argument we have multiple weapons and MO’s, and physical appearances (hair colour height and weight) – and yet we dismiss a hoax theory on the basis of common sense? More thinking’s required about it, for sure, but dismissal’s very short-sighted. Somethings very smelly about the whole thing.

"… get his hands on Stine’s shirt to mail it as fast as he did." How fast? I don’t know. How fast to drive from Napa? How fast if you’re already in the area? How fast if you’re having a few beers with the SF Coroner’s office already? Speed isn’t the issue – access is. And it’s not a matter of racing to a particular crime scene – it’s a matter of choosing the right crime scene to steal physical evidence from. No rush.
Again, what reason,or business, woud Snook have to race to the coroner’s office in SF? He would have to show up there first thing Monday morning in time to get the shirt piece and mail it that same day. The SFPD did not previously have any connection to the Z case, so Snook couldnt or wouldnt have reason to be at the coroner’s office in SF. Again, this is laughable and easy to discredit the entire hoax theory.

"If a Berryessa investigator was the hoaxer, he would be awfully lucky to have the attacker in the case at Berryessa wearing a crosshair logo on his hood, unless he is accusing an investigator of being the attacker,and that’s simply terrible and low if thats the case."
I don’t think anyone’s accused Hal Snook of wielding a knife at Berryessa. But how low is that? Do we want to know the truth? I know I do. Something happened at Berryessa which had nothing to do with luck or coincidence. Probably. But since the case has lasted this darn long, I reckon some luck or coincidence might be part of it, perhaps.

It’s disgusting to even hint at something along those lines.

The Hoax theory isn’t something new. We can go back to very old message boards and read about drug conspiracies, the Vallejo PD/Fire Depts. striking, newspapers seeking attention…it’s all been laid out there for years.

I’m guilty myself of venturing down these avenues.

While the letters could be a hoax (we surely know some were copy-cats), people were killed. THAT person(s) is who we seek. Sure woud be nice too if any letter fakers were punished in some way for messing with an investigation.

As most of you know, the handwriting doesn’t cut it for me. Still to this day we question certain documents as Zodiac when they have been confirmed as Zodiac’s only to be unconfirmed as Zodiac’s. Even the professionals do not agree; meaning Morril and others. Proof, imo, needs to be more than handwriting.

Tahoe,I agree with you, writing is no wheres as important as prints,DNA, etc, it’s just one tool that they work with. As fas as conspiracies, sometimes the truth is just too vanilla for some people, and vanilla can simply be boring,but sometimes, vanilla is vanilla,not rocky road

The Hoax theory isn’t something new. We can go back to very old message boards and read about drug conspiracies, the Vallejo PD/Fire Depts. striking, newspapers seeking attention…it’s all been laid out there for years.

I’m guilty myself of venturing down these avenues.

While the letters could be a hoax (we surely know some were copy-cats), people were killed. THAT person(s) is who we seek. Sure woud be nice too if any letter fakers were punished in some way for messing with an investigation.

As most of you know, the handwriting doesn’t cut it for me. Still to this day we question certain documents as Zodiac when they have been confirmed as Zodiac’s only to be unconfirmed as Zodiac’s. Even the professionals do not agree; meaning Morril and others. Proof, imo, needs to be more than handwriting.

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Does the group think the unsolved ciphers are really going to tell us the identity(ies) of the kiler(s)?

I actually think that it might. Do I think that Z would write ‘MY NAME IS BOB SMITH AT 123 SMITH LN, VALLEJO’? No,but I think Z thought he was so smart, and thought he could give the cops clues that they wouldnt be able to do anything with. However, if we take the names that have been developed as suspects etc, and compare them to clues in the Z ciphers, we might see something that jumps out.

A couple examples for me of things that jump out at me are these:

* In the ‘my name’ cipher, the symbols used at the beginning & end of the cipher line up with the letters in the name of a suspect I have, that graduated with Cheri Jo Bates and then lived in Vallejo. With that, I think the cipher could be an anagram for this person’s name. The letter to symbol frequency also lines up well. Had I not had this name to work with already, seeing the cipher itself would be of no special interest to me.

It would be a miracle if Snook was the Z letter writer, and he just happened to write on a car door at a crime scene in which the attacker wore a Z crosshair symbol on his hood.

Well, yes indeed. THAT’S the reason I started this thread, to address that very issue. I called it a problem and it is, a big one.
I tend to think something else was going on, less miraculous.
I also tend to think that someone in a position just like Hal Snook’s would be a perfect candidate to write the letters, if the letters weren’t written by one single actual killer, btw.

Just because something is possible, doesn’t make it likely. Ever hear of a person who’s skydives and their parachute doesnt open after a jump from very high up? 99.9% of the time they die, but of course, we have the 00.1% chance of them somehow surviving like we see on the news every so often, but overwhelmingly, it’s not likely they live. So again, just because Horan’s theory is theoretically possible, doesnt make it likely. ….see Ocams Razor.

I just hate Occam’s flamin’ razor. What’s it for? To prove something unlikely didn’t happen? How about 911? I didn’t think that was likely. Happened.
My wife loves me. Weird. Happened. The razor’s not much use. Why resort to the razor? Facts!

Paul Stine was killed Saturday night, 10/11/69. The Zodiac mailed a letter Monday, 10/13/69 including the shirt piece. Seriously, do you really think that Snook went to SF Coroner’soffice on Monday morning (assuming it was not open on Sunday),got access to the shirt, and then ran out and mailed the letter in time to get postmarked that day? It’s laughable…it’s ridiculous, and it completely discredits the theory,or at least that Snook was involved.

Two days isn’t long enough to cut off a piece of shirt and mail it? I don’t see the point here. I don’t see why not. Someone did – since the idea someone pulled Stine over onto their lap and made a single perfect cut across his shirt tail – even if they used Occam’s Razor – well, that needs some common sense applying to it.

Again, what reason,or business, woud Snook have to race to the coroner’s office in SF? He would have to show up there first thing Monday morning in time to get the shirt piece and mail it that same day. The SFPD did not previously have any connection to the Z case, so Snook couldnt or wouldnt have reason to be at the coroner’s office in SF. Again, this is laughable and easy to discredit the entire hoax theory

What if – since he was a forensic scientist, with a lab, he happened to be socialising with the SFCO when the call came in? What if he happened to meet them the morning after on another matter? He would not NEED to race to their office. Time was very much on his side. He didn’t need to take physical evidence from THAT crime. He needed only take it from ANY crime accessible to him. See? If he’d taken the drivers license from a hit-and-run in the morgue and claimed to have been the hit-and-run driver, the effect would have been the same. See?

It’s disgusting to even hint at something along those lines.
The pictures of Betty Lou, lying dead are disgusting, as are the close-ups of the wound behind David’s ear. Thirteen shots (maybe more) into the car at BRS.
Someone knifed Cecilia to death in broad daylight, someone shot Paul Stine close-up, those acts were heinous and disgusting. Why would we limit our discussion about who the possible perpetrators of a maybe-act which has prevented them being solved?

On this thread about hoax possibilities, the ciphers have no importance whatever, since they cannot contain anything of significance.
Even if a murderer WAS going to be stupid enough to hand out "clews".
Bummer. I spent lots of time on the 340. Never mind.

I apologizing in just asking without checking first but there are so many sites to look, were there actual Z. fingerprints and DNA collected from all the known Z. letters? and do they match?

I personally don’t intend to spend anymore time on this subject, or the hoax,but welcome anybody interested in it to continue posting about it.

I apologizing in just asking without checking first but there are so many sites to look, were there actual Z. fingerprints and DNA collected from all the known Z. letters? and do they match?

VIc – a question which is contentious! There’s nothing in the public arena to suggest (through fingerprints) more than one letter-writer, no.
There’s nothing either – except an interpretation of one particular report – to suggest that any crime scene/telephone fingerprint matches the letters, either.
It’s a puzzle.

I was wondering about the voice last night. How Zodiac sounded, not the singing competition.

Slover, Slaight and Hartnell all heard him. I can already hear people thinking that could have been anybody, yes it could except once again Berryessa complicates things. It wasn’t anybody that attacked them and murdered Cecelia, it was someone. Allegedly that same someone who also spoke to Slover and Slaight.

It’s hardly hard evidence, I know, I mean how can you be sure they all heard the same individual? Well I don’t know if you can be sure but what we do know is that they were brought in to listen to the caller on the Dunbar show and they all agreed it wasn’t the individual they had each heard. Now to reach that conclusion they must have agreed on certain characteristics that weren’t present and ones that were that didn’t match so from that and I assume, each of them being questioned about the voice they heard that was allegedly Zodiac, there must have been a reasonable consensus that they had heard the same individual.

As I said, not rock solid but still something to factor in / consider.

If only there had been a nice expensive recording system in place, this trouble over the calls wouldn’t be trouble would it?
Slaight seemed to think the caller sounded quite young – younger than Nancy Slover reported anyway. Hmmm.
The fact that they all three knew it wasn’t the mystery caller on the show – mental patient Ed Weil – does prove something I guess, but not that they’d all heard the same guy, necessarily. A pity there wasn’t some kind of "photo-fit" equivalent for voices used with each of them, seperately. (If that makes sense.)

The calls are contentious – but I for one believe that the guy who attacked Bryan and Cecelia did indeed make the telephone call shortly afterward from downtown Napa. If he was a copycat (IF IF IF IF) in a "borrowed" persona from the newspapers and a strange hood (IF IF IF IF) trying to be the best Zodiac Killer he could be – then I think he would also have followed through on the published MO and made that call.
How that fits in with a writer who is entirely unrelated to this attacker though? Well – that’s one of the two problems I started the thread for.
Not going away, are they, those problems.

I’m sure I’ve read that Bryan Hartnell was the son of a Seventh Day Adventist clergyman. I need to find out where. He and Cecelia – also a SDA congregation member – were no longer boy-and-girl-friend, but were still enjoying a physical relationship, which they celebrated that afternoon on the lake shore at Berryessa. Enough of a motive for someone to attack them, maybe? Someone who knew one or other of them and didn’t endorse their behaviour?
Good thread on the articles here (Seagull again, bless her.)
http://zodiackillertruth.forumchitchat. … es-4956131
Good background (maybe) here:
http://www.puc.edu/media/history/years/1950-to-1970

The calls are contentious – but I for one believe that the guy who attacked Bryan and Cecelia did indeed make the telephone call shortly afterward from downtown Napa. If he was a copycat (IF IF IF IF) in a "borrowed" persona from the newspapers and a strange hood (IF IF IF IF) trying to be the best Zodiac Killer he could be – then I think he would also have followed through on the published MO and made that call.
How that fits in with a writer who is entirely unrelated to this attacker though? Well – that’s one of the two problems I started the thread for.
Not going away, are they, those problems.

I’m sure I’ve read that Bryan Hartnell was the son of a Seventh Day Adventist clergyman. I need to find out where. He and Cecelia – also a SDA congregation member – were no longer boy-and-girl-friend, but were still enjoying a physical relationship, which they celebrated that afternoon on the lake shore at Berryessa. Enough of a motive for someone to attack them, maybe? Someone who knew one or other of them and didn’t endorse their behaviour?

Assuming this attack wasn’t the work of a "group" looking for victims intended to be a "distraction" away from Vallejo[1], what are the chances The Z. staked out that place all day waiting for a couple or for what reason(s) would he have followed B.H. and C.S. as L.B. was an impromptu decision? The Z. would have to have been a fellow with a lot of time on his hands, an incredible amount of patience, no social life or familial responsibility, and possibly living on a million dollar trust fund to be sitting around waiting on or following his victims.

1. The Z. bothering (to falsely) explain his plans and identity yet wearing a disguise to prevent being identified by his next murder victim probably intentionally leaving B.H. alive , then writing dates on their car door seems like a marketing ploy as his next, and probably last, attack is over 40 miles away from Vallejo.

Assuming this attack wasn’t the work of a "group" looking for victims intended to be a "distraction" away from Vallejo[1], what are the chances The Z. staked out that place all day waiting for a couple or for what reason(s) would he have followed B.H. and C.S. as L.B. was an impromptu decision? The Z. would have to have been a fellow with a lot of time on his hands, an incredible amount of patience, no social life or familial responsibility, and possibly living on a million dollar trust fund to be sitting around waiting on or following his victims.

If the police had let down their informers on two occasions at both LHR and BRS, then there’s an absolute outside chance (no it’s too ridiculous) that an attack outside the original jurisdictions joined together by the letters might have taken the pressure off, I suppose. (No, really, it really is too ridiculous.)
Victor – I’m not saying "The Z" any more – I’m going with "the attacker at Berryessa" – and if the murders aren’t related at all then he could have been anything from jealous ex- (or wannabe) boyfriend of Cecelia, to upset member of the church, to paranoid schizophrenic inmate of the Napa State Hospital on a day out. The delight (if there’s a delight here) of thinking about the crimes as possible one-off’s, is you can bring in whomever you like.
Since there was a stalker spotted earlier in the day at another nearby part of the lake, I think the physical description given of him might well be accurate. What do I know?

1. The Z. bothering (to falsely) explain his plans and identity yet wearing a disguise to prevent being identified by his next murder victim probably intentionally leaving B.H. alive , then writing dates on their car door seems like a marketing ploy as his next, and probably last, attack is over 40 miles away from Vallejo.

Before anyone else throws things at you I must say that the idea Bryan wasn’t supposed to be killed has been aired before, to loud disapproval. He was stabbed 5 times and Cecelia 10, leading some people to believe she was more likely the intended "target" and so on – but the idea of stabbing someone 5 times and "intentionally" not intending to kill them doesn’t seem a likely one. Although opinions differ. It doesn’t seem it was perhaps all that well-practised an activity on the attackers part, this stabbing people to death with a knife – we can agree on that, perhaps.
Yes, writing on the door seems like a marketing ploy. Yes, moving the next "attack scene" (or claim to another crime) into the big city does seem like a planned escalation, doesn’t it. But then the counter-argument holds good, too, that a "serial killer" would up the ante, I guess.
Except he wouldn’t change his height, weight, MO and so on, in my opinion.

Why was he wearing that disguise? Because he didn’t look too much like the description handed out about the attacker at BRS maybe? Too old? Too tall? Glasses?

Assuming this attack wasn’t the work of a "group" looking for victims intended to be a "distraction" away from Vallejo[1], what are the chances The Z. staked out that place all day waiting for a couple or for what reason(s) would he have followed B.H. and C.S. as L.B. was an impromptu decision? The Z. would have to have been a fellow with a lot of time on his hands, an incredible amount of patience, no social life or familial responsibility, and possibly living on a million dollar trust fund to be sitting around waiting on or following his victims.

If the police had let down their informers on two occasions at both LHR and BRS, then there’s an absolute outside chance (no it’s too ridiculous) that an attack outside the original jurisdictions joined together by the letters might have taken the pressure off, I suppose. (No, really, it really is too ridiculous.)
Victor – I’m not saying "The Z" any more – I’m going with "the attacker at Berryessa" – and if the murders aren’t related at all then he could have been anything from jealous ex- (or wannabe) boyfriend of Cecelia, to upset member of the church, to paranoid schizophrenic inmate of the Napa State Hospital on a day out. The delight (if there’s a delight here) of thinking about the crimes as possible one-off’s, is you can bring in whomever you like.
Since there was a stalker spotted earlier in the day at another nearby part of the lake, I think the physical description given of him might well be accurate. What do I know?
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So are you of the belief that someone was using the cover of The Z., like a comic book villain, at each of the attacks?

1. The Z. bothering (to falsely) explain his plans and identity yet wearing a disguise to prevent being identified by his next murder victim probably intentionally leaving B.H. alive , then writing dates on their car door seems like a marketing ploy as his next, and probably last, attack is over 40 miles away from Vallejo.

Before anyone else throws things at you I must say that the idea Bryan wasn’t supposed to be killed has been aired before, to loud disapproval. He was stabbed 5 times and Cecelia 10, leading some people to believe she was more likely the intended "target" and so on – but the idea of stabbing someone 5 times and "intentionally" not intending to kill them doesn’t seem a likely one. Although opinions differ. It doesn’t seem it was perhaps all that well-practised an activity on the attackers part, this stabbing people to death with a knife – we can agree on that, perhaps.
Yes, writing on the door seems like a marketing ploy. Yes, moving the next "attack scene" (or claim to another crime) into the big city does seem like a planned escalation, doesn’t it. But then the counter-argument holds good, too, that a "serial killer" would up the ante, I guess.
Except he wouldn’t change his height, weight, MO and so on, in my opinion.

Why was he wearing that disguise? Because he didn’t look too much like the description handed out about the attacker at BRS maybe? Too old? Too tall? Glasses?

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Giving a false identity and wearing a disguise helps for no other reason whatsoever than being identified later by living victim. (Making endless assumptions trying to prove the "lone nut" theory) Assuming the attacker was just being precautious, he could have been more precautious had he skipped the obvious lie and disguise and gone for their jugulars before he left. Assuming he wasn’t experienced enough. Well, he got CJB right.

Smithy, So are you of the belief that someone was using the cover of The Z., like a comic book villain, at each of the attacks?

Smithy, So are you of the belief that someone was using the cover of The Z., like a comic book villain, at each of the attacks?

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Sorry. I ask trying to figure out if you mean a person was doing the killing and someone else claiming to be The Zodiac or a different person doing the killing pretending to be The Zodiac each time.