I think it’s interesting that until 1974 Homosexuality was considered a mental illness according to the psychiatric association. Could that be why the Zodiac referred to himself as "insane"? Bc he was gay?

Authorities thought the Boston Strangler was gay too. As you’ll recall, he was a killer who violently raped, garrotted, and orally sodomized women – behaviors of a straight sexual sadist. In my opinion, this widespread, scientifically-accepted pathologizing of homosexuality is the only reason anyone would ever have for believing the Zodiac was gay. He killed couples because he coveted what they had (that is to say, normal, healthy romantic relationships) and envied them to the point of hatred. The only deviation from the pattern is Paul Stine, a man so beloved by his wife that she never even removed her wedding ring, let alone remarried, after his death. One can only wonder what sort of small-talk he made with his fare that night.

Was Z somewhere toward the middle of the Kinsey scale? It’s possible. David Berkowitz expressed a sort of puerile infatuation with a fellow inmate’s muscles in some of his letters from prison, though this can probably be chalked up to deeply internalized body-image issues. (He did, after all, refer to himself as the "chubby behemoth" in the Capt. Borrelli letter.) And as far as I know has never identified as anything other than straight and told the FBI specifically about the thrill he got from killing women, and it’s telling that his first victims were a pair of lone females that he attacked with a knife – a decidedly sexual act. His fetishization of Donna Lauria – the victim he called his "pretty princess" and talked of as having been promised as his bride – parallels Zodiac’s own writing about "slaves in paradice." Besides, I wouldn’t expect a homosexual killer to compare the act of murder to "getting your rocks off with a girl," nor cheekily brag about cupping a victim’s breast and becoming excited by its warmth. (Presuming, of course, that Z was at least the letter writer in the Cheri Jo Bates case.)

Was Zodiac gay? I doubt it. Was he a weird, romantically awkward, and traditionally unattractive man who was probably picked on for his weight and perceived "sissiness" by male and female peers alike, a man who ill-fit traditional, socially-prescribed masculinity even as he attempted to embrace it by collecting guns and styling himself as some sort of hunter/outdoorsman? Most definitely. In that sense, Z could be said to have more than a little in common with the closeted gay men of his era, and that makes this an important conversation to have.

IMO, Z wasn’t gay, as such. Instead, I see him as hetero but, probably for psychological reasons, unable to have intercourse. To mask this inability, he adopted a hyper-macho persona, complete with scary mumbo-jumbo. His first murder, IMO Cheri Bates, temporarily removed the blockage preventing him from having normal intercourse by proving (at least to himself) that women no longer represented a threat.
Again, IMO, I believe the passage of time dissolved Z’s pseudo-masculinity, and he found himself at Square One. The solution? Rinse and repeat. Unfortunately, however, Z’s potency lasted for shorter and shorter periods.
And then came Stine.
After he killed Stine (for whatever reason) Z found himself again potent. And why was he potent? Because, Z reasoned, he had killed a man. Ergo, he must be a "queer"–unacceptable in a time when homosexuality was frowned on. What to do? Stop killing, OR stop bragging (and no one would guess his shameful secret).
Which did he choose?

Pettibon Junction – thanks for your analysis. Captivating! I agree with you after reading it. I can’t say there was a point that I didn’t agree with.

Dag Maclugh the idea of Z having a pseudo masculinity that he had to fulfill by murdering women makes a lot of sense. And maybe by murdering the men Zodiac also felt more masculine. It like seem to me IMHO that Zodiac had a power fetish if anything.

Maybe, for that reason, he was in the middle of the Kinsey scale somewhere as Pettibon Junction asserted. He may lust after females, but gets the same euphoric gratification when he kills both men and women. Perhaps murdering both men and women satiated his desire for power over both sexes. It’s as if he began with a female (CJB) before the couples were murdered – and then he needed to end with a male (Stine) maybe to even the "score" with his attacks.

I do think it’s fun to talk about all
Of this and our ideas.

I think it is important that he thought killing was better than having sex with girls. killing has a sexually sadistic arousal for him – and yes the fact he killed men and women might indicate a present heterosexual attraction to females and a latent homosexual attraction to males… Making Z, in his own strange way, bisexual or maybe more specific bicurious

It like seem to me IMHO that Zodiac had a power fetish if anything.

That’s exactly it. It’s not enough for him to seek out surrogates for the women who’ve rejected him and punish them for failing to see his worth. He must also humiliate the men who outrank him and, by destroying them, take their place at the head of the pack.

Narcissism, and a need to exercise power: the hallmarks of a psychopath.

Other considerations: From the pocket knife that killed Bates to the mini-sword used at LB; from a .22 used at Benicia to the 9mm used on Stine.

I am trying hard not to bias myself against my top couple of suspects, but I think most likely he was abused, yet then told through religious teachings any sex is wrong. It also wouldn’t surprise me if as the eldest brother, he tried to protect his brothers- very common in abuse cases.

I think its obvious who my tippy top POI is, so I wonder why they moved soooooooo much. And all this is ALL supposition.

And I don’t think all abused become abusers, but he may have had other illnesses developing. If Agnews? where he claimed at Riverside he spent some time, possibly Napa, and Binghamton will be a wild card- they loved those ECT, lobotomies, insulin shocks, cold bath therapy, long term restrain, isolation, etc. The old school lobotomies take away emotion and make zombies, maybe the treatments made it worse. I think another prominent POI spent some time in a "hospital."— quoted because I think they did more harm than good.

I also think being on the cusp of the gay rights movement, beginning in the beat poetry movement developing in the 50’s and toward the end of the 60’s/early 70’s a lot of counterculture papers actually went under due to gay rights publication as the new "cause." Homosexuality might (unfortunately still can) make you suicidal, but not homicidal, at least not homicidal at a rate greater than the population entire.

-m

Interesting thoughts Marie! You know maybe Arthur Leigh Allen has the answer to what Hospital your POI may have been in. Remember when ALA pulled a cipher from a metal box and told a man and his wife that a patient at Atascadero Hospital gave it to him? at the time it housed both sane sexual offenders and criminally insane sexual offenders. I’m not sure ALA was the Zodiac, but Ive always wondered if ALA did somehow know the Zodiac and IF he wasn’t fibbing about the Zodiac being at Atascadero State Hospital. ALA seemed more like a super fan in many ways with his behavior. For the record it is a crappy hospital that was easy to escape from during the time the Zodiac was active. It is between LA and San Fransisco.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atascad … e_Hospital

Here are some thoughts to ALAs often bringing up a man at Atascadero

http://www.zodiackiller.com/mba/ala/850.html

I remain open minded about POIs. Marie you will have an inbox message shortly

Paul only reported about the gayness as it was mentioned by Law Enforcement. I think back then being gay was blamed for a lot of things.

Zodiac did use circled dots for "i’s" and periods. Just one example: http://zodiackiller.com/SFEL1HR.html

I also thought it interesting (not that the writer was Zodiac) that the writer of Cheri Jo’s DNA report used them as well. I find doing that is almost whimsical…

Paul only reported about the gayness as it was mentioned by Law Enforcement. I think back then being gay was blamed for a lot of things.

Zodiac did use circled dots for "i’s" and periods. Just one example: http://zodiackiller.com/SFEL1HR.html

I also thought it interesting (not that the writer was Zodiac) that the writer of Cheri Jo’s DNA report used them as well. I find doing that is almost whimsical…

Hey Tahoe – whimsical is a wonderful word to describe the bubbled dot In the handwriting.

Thanks for clearing up who mentioned the theory that Zodiac might be gay.

I agree that bc of the stigma put on the gay community at the time labeling the Zodiac as a latent homosexual would have likely been a bias assessment rather than an objective assessment.

I laugh every time I come across this thread. I have thoughts of the Zodiac pulling petals off flowers and chanting "Avery loves me, he loves me NOT!"

Really there is no proof of his sexual orientation at all. I guess if the Zodiac had started going on about show tunes and drawing little pink flowers on his envelopes, this may have suggested something. But even then, aren’t those things just a stereotype?

Nobody even knows who the Zodiac was, let alone anything about his personal life.