Again I’m gonna have to pipe in on this notion that the Z’s crimes were all totally different M.O.s. Really?

Because to me it looks like all of them were near a park, by a road, a random stranger who happened to be where he was lurking, All of them in or near their own cars, without much fanfare he set about attacking and killing, and then quickly exited the scene most likely with a car parked nearby. Boasted about it in some form afterwards. What’s the big difference here? By gun, by day,by phone, with hood, one guy. So what?

Duck I think to muc can be read into things sometimes, and I think people can end up trying to prove that something that really isn’t based on any thing at all, like "Maple Street" being the destination because, I have heard some say, this is Zodiac clearly trying to tell us he’s Canadian.

And the best one, a very common and well know theory is the one that points out the fact that all attacks occurred close to a body of water. And my response to that is, well they would do, the incidents all happened in San Francisco BAY AREA.

I mean sometimes a theory isn’t really a theory at all. Like if I created a new thread today stating I have just noticed a very significant pattern in the Zodiac’s crimes that has to have a meaning and it is this… "All of Zodiac’s attacks occurred with a 1 mile radius of a road. Now this cannot be accidental coincidence, this is a deliberate oddity that Zodiac is trying to alert us to. He may be telling us that he lives within 1 square mile of a public road! That would narrow the search….(sarcasm btw, not genuine theory lol)

The best theory I have yet to have come up with is the one where I noticed that due to the facts, I have a theory that the killer, Zodiac, only ever committed his crimes and kills on days that end in the letter Y. I have yet to receive any criticism or challenge to this complicated theory, so I may be onto something <

But seriously, even though I know you have not asked for my opinion, I shall give it anyway *grinning*….
Try not to get to caught up in the more colourful theories that really,, even if shown to have good basis to suppot them, really don’t matter that much regardless like the water theory. If I could show that it;’s is a fact Z killed close to watcer purposely each time, then that would be fantastic and then the first question would be "Alex, this is fantastic news. Excellent discovery….So how will this now assist us in finding out the Zodiac’s name?

I don’t really understand what you and smithy are talking about. Must be the accents.

I’m just saying that his MO and signature seem pretty consistent to me and within the bounds of flexibility of a criminal trying to evolve to his circumstances. On the surface LB seems totally different from the other attacks, but if you look at all of them together they have more in common than they have different. Whether he uses a gun here or a knife there is less important than if he chopped the body into fifteen pieces and formed into into a christmass tree afterwards.

If he hung one person in a highschool gym, slashed a throat in a movie theater, shot them 57 times at the park, dipped them into anthills, hung them by their thumbs… er. anyway, yeah, that would make me think twice. The bodies weren’t moved, weren’t staged, weren’t sexually assaulted, yeah, those are the kind of differences, or lack of in this case, to look out for.

Hi-

For those who think that the murders may have been committed by different people, let me remind you that a man who solves cold cases for a living reviewed the Z case in 2004 and determined that each of the Z crimes was power driven. That is why he labeled him a "power assertive." So what you are basically saying is that there were two or more power-assertive killers that just happened to be operating in the Bay Area at the same time. (How many different killers were there, BTW? Can someone tell me?) Either that or just one power obsessed person committed all the murders.

Before I met with Richard Walter in 2004, I wondered if Z might have been so unique that he could not be labeled. I wondered how you could use interviews with killers who were stupid enough to get caught (i.e., the basis of profiling) to find one who was so successful he had not been captured in 35 years. Wasn’t he beyond profiling? But once Walter explained it all to me, especially the part about the profile explaining the need for publicity and the letter writing, it all made sense.

Mike

Hi-

For those who think that the murders may have been committed by different people, let me remind you that a man who solves cold cases for a living reviewed the Z case in 2004 and determined that each of the Z crimes was power driven. That is why he labeled him a "power assertive." So what you are basically saying is that there were two or more power-assertive killers that just happened to be operating in the Bay Area at the same time. (How many different killers were there, BTW? Can someone tell me?) Either that or just one power obsessed person committed all the murders.

Before I met with Richard Walter in 2004, I wondered if Z might have been so unique that he could not be labeled. I wondered how you could use interviews with killers who were stupid enough to get caught (i.e., the basis of profiling) to find one who was so successful he had not been captured in 35 years. Wasn’t he beyond profiling? But once Walter explained it all to me, especially the part about the profile explaining the need for publicity and the letter writing, it all made sense.

Mike

It does make sense, but for me…makes LB even more out-of-the-loop.

For those who think that the murders may have been committed by different people, let me remind you that a man who solves cold cases for a living reviewed the Z case in 2004 and determined that each of the Z crimes was power driven.

Mike, lots of people have decided one person did them all, that there’s some consistency, progression and similarities in MO in each attack. They didn’t need to take a term usually used in rape cases to do so, either. The Daddy of all things profiling was one of them in his book "The Cases that Haunt Us", John Douglas. Are they right? Welllllll……..

How’s this for a quote? "During roughly the first seven months of 1969, a total of 95 people were murdered in San Francisco".
http://zodiacrevisited.com/interesting- … homicides/
In the Bay Area of the time then, being assertive and powerful? I don’t know. Several?

"How many different killers were there, BTW?"
My guess is four. I don’t care really, if I’m honest. I’m interested in the letter writer.

Hi smithy-

Imagine what would have happened if the "letter writer" had linked himself to a crime that happened to get solved. How embarrassing would that have been? He is fortunate indeed that he happened to choose four unrelated and widely spaced crime scenes that all have murders that have somehow escaped solution for over forty years. He even chose a cab driver murder for which the forensics may not have even been complete by the time he sent the Stine letter without knowing if the lowlife who had committed it might have been caught…or if he was to be caught robbing another cab in the future and confessed to the Stine job, etc.

The "letter writer" really took stupid chances linking those cases and must have had a crystal ball to pick the ones that would never be solved.

LOL! I had to laugh at your snide comment about rapist typologies. Are you going to reinvent profiling with your own, more suitable system? When you do and you solve even ONE case please let me know.

Mike

Mike,
Yes – true!

Several things in his favor of course. Clear-up rates were poor, and he could be confident that at least LHR was pretty cold. (Did he know enough about Berryessa to know the murderer would walk? I don’t know. Possibly.) And If any single one of them was solved, would it kill the hoax, completely? The Chronicle might have continued to publish his stuff anyway, I think. After all Officer Radetich got through, and none of the other strange threats put an end to things.

Say, suppose it’s proven that the case number on the later shirt photos refer to the Hashem Zayed case – the Pinecrest Diner murderer guy.
Will we then start to think of the Stine murder as being solved, or at least who the perp probably was? Will that mean the end of the "hoax"? Naaaa, I don’t think so. I think then everyone would be after his handwriting. But not surprised when it didn’t match. I think it will run and run.

Say, suppose it’s proven that the case number on the later shirt photos refer to the Hashem Zayed case – the Pinecrest Diner murderer guy…

To me, that is about as plausible as Herb Caen having a piece of the bloody shirt.

Hee hee – Herb Caen – you’re naughty.

Re: Zayed – Is that completely implausible? That he killed Paul Stine? I don’t know.
Against:
1) A loooong time between crimes. Probably. (Well, known ones). Wouldn’t he have got at least a parking ticket meantime? Yes, you’d think so.
2) Glasses in the physical description. Did he ever have any?
3) Motive? (Robbery? Just something Paul said set him off, as Helen Menicou did?)
4) Lot’s more I’m sure. I don’t know the case well, or him, or anything else really. Just shooting my mouth off.

For:
1) He was right there. News of the cab pick-up being outside the Pine Crest must have leaked out somehow(?), since people graffiti the rest-rooms there with Zodiac signs, still. It’s on Yelp. Is this the biggest clew? Jeeeez, let’s hope not.
2) He was a murderer – later on yes – but a murderer.
3) He certainly resembles the composite. That doesn’t hurt.
4) 380 semiautomatic handgun. I wonder what it was?

Question:
What does that case number 97-017 mean on those shirt photo’s? It’s very annoying not to be able to reject that and discount this stuff.

Some recent-sh info on Hashem. Irony? I don’t know.

http://www.sfweekly.com/2000-09-06/news … y-lingers/

About this "Man who solves Cold Cases for a living." He may very well have determined many things from looking at the case, however, I cant help noticing he did not determine the most important element of the case, The Suspect/s name/s. He may well be qualified to give his opinions on what he thinks the motive was or any other thing, but at the end of the day, that is just his opinion. If Smithy came here and said he thought Z may not have been responsible for all of the attacks that have been accredited to him and when asked why he thinks this and what he bases it on he said "It’s based on absolutely nothing what-so-ever and I believe it maybe true because I said so" then I would be the first to roll my eyes. But having had many a debate and conversation with Smithy I am quite confident that if he has an opinion or, dare I use the dreaded word… Theory, then he will have good reason to hold that opinion. If I am honest, I think trying to shoot down a theory by based on some man’s opinion of the motive for the crimes is, wit respect a weak argument to try and do it with. The way I see it, unless the identity of Z is uncovered and/or a full confession given with proof of claim by the killer, then any opinion Smithy gives that he is basing on factual evidence is just as valid as any other. I mean if I demanded now "Smithy, prove to me that he didn’t commit all Four attacks that he is officially recognized as having done!" then Smithy could reply "Can you prove that he did?" and the answer would be, obviously No.
I realised a long time ago that when it comes to Zodiac that many will disagree with a theory because for some reason they don’t like the idea of it and/or don’t want that to be the truth and they seem to have personalised Zodiac. That’s evidenced by the fact that to many people it’s never "The Suspect" but "My Suspect." which always amuses me as I imagine the saying next "He’s my suspect! Go away and find your own".

Hi-

I guess I should made expressed myself more clearly, instead of using shorthand. Profilers are behavioral experts, not detectives. When I say that Walter "solves cases," what I mean is that he analyzes the crime scenes and then provides a profile, which is a general description of the person who committed the crime, to police departments. They are then tasked with using the profile to find the actual person who fits that profile and who can be linked to the case. I don’t know of any profilers who also go out and try to find the perps themselves. They are not detectives.

So the fact that Walter did not "name" a suspect is kind of misleading. That is not his job. He describes a "family," a pool of suspects. Someone else, USUALLY a detective, has to find the gold nugget.

Mike

Hi-

I guess I should made expressed myself more clearly, instead of using shorthand. Profilers are behavioral experts, not detectives. When I say that Walter "solves cases," what I mean is that he analyzes the crime scenes and then provides a profile, which is a general description of the person who committed the crime, to police departments. They are then tasked with using the profile to find the actual person who fits that profile and who can be linked to the case. I don’t know of any profilers who also go out and try to find the perps themselves. They are not detectives.

So the fact that Walter did not "name" a suspect is kind of misleading. That is not his job. He describes a "family," a pool of suspects. Someone else, USUALLY a detective, has to find the gold nugget.

Mike

I understand what Profilers do Mike and what their job description entails. "Profilers are behavioural experts." Well I would hope so. I would be fairly confused if I visited the FBI’s Behavioural Science Unit and discovered it full of wine tasting experts lol.
But all joking aside, I am quite familiar with the Behavioural Science Unit and the art of profiling. In the early days when profiling was a new concept it was scoffed at and when they would go to a crime scene and the local detectives found out they were profilers they wouldn’t give them any information and just tell them they were not needed there and they would have no choice but to go back. Then John Douglas came along and the rest is history. He is the reason for the Behavioural Science Unit being as successful as it is today and the credibility that profiling now has is because of him. I have no idea to this day how Douglas knew and stated "Suspect will have a stutter" when he profiled the then at large serial killer Robert Hansen.

On the subject of Profiling, I agree with you Mike. I think the public generally doesn’t understand how Behavioral Profiling works or how it is really utilized.

Here’s an article that I always get a kick out of sharing, which basically says that Profiling is BS! I disagree, but I think it’s important to look at things from different angles.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/11/12/071112fa_fact_gladwell