I’ll start by saying I’m pretty new to the case and the amount of research some of the people here have done is impressive. As much as I love travelling down worm holes, I try not to lose sight of things that are certainties. These are what I consider certainties, and those lead to my theories on Zodiac’s occupation and personality.
Certainties:
1.) Zodiac knew the back roads of the bay area well
2.) Zodiac shows an awareness in most cases of exit paths, traffic patterns, and possibly police response times
3.) While communicating mostly with SF newspapers, he also wrote letters to papers in Sacramento, Vallejo, and L.A.
4.) In the 10 months between the Farrady and LB attacks, he may have possessed 2, possibly 3 late-model cars
5.) He was a reader of classical and Savoy theater and literature and newspapers
Personality
I believe the Zodiac was a loner. Most likely obsessive-compulsive, and by the time of the killings completely immersed in a fantasy world. He was however "normal" looking and quite possibly charming when he wanted to be. He had difficulty maintaining relationships and due to his interest in classical literature probably spoke differently than most in his peer group. He was probably quiet but would become talkative, harassing, and belittling during disagreements. People who knew him may have described him as dramatic or fatalistic. He would have difficulty relating to people around him. He thought they were beneath him, inferior beings. He was employed, and had to deal with society enough on a day to day basis where it continued to fuel his murderous thoughts.
Occupation
I have seen several theories on this forum and other sites as to Zodiac’s occupation. I agree with the general direction of some of those theories, but I will take it a step further. I do not believe he was LE, but it is very likely he was in the military for a period of time. His military ID would have allowed him on base to purchase items from the B/X, like boots. He also displays proficiency with a firearm.
Based on my list of certainties, I believe it is possible Zodiac was a traffic engineer, or worked in a road engineering capacity for CalTrans, or the Department of Public Works as it was known then.
This position may have required an engineering degree (radians, map making- these were the days before CAD was widely used). He would be travelling the area to work on road projects, especially in the more rural and developing areas around SF. Driving some of those projects would be things like traffic flow improvements and first responder response times, data he could even be measuring and gathering himself. Knowing if he mailed a letter it may be 2-4 days before it’s published, he would mail the letters in SF and include the papers local to where he would be working in the next few days so he could read them. I imagine him in a hotel lobby or diner asking people if they read the letter in the paper from that wackjob Zodiac to hear their reactions. A government job would also allow him a generous holiday schedule. Depending on his position, he may have had little to no supervision. He was also probably frustrated with working for a bureaucracy however the inefficient structure and lack of accountability normally associated with civil positions was probably the only thing keeping him employed. Such an occupation would also explain his clean-cut, "square" appearance and would pay well enough to keep him in guns, ammo, late model cars and gas to travel the countryside.
I believe he had knowledge of traffic patterns and response times based on the circumstances around the attacks.
In BRS for example, he drives off and calls the police 40 minutes later from a payphone less than 4 miles away from the crime scene. I do knot know the Vallejo area, or any area of California, but looking at maps today my belief is he saw a vehicle leaving the scene and he estimated he would be arriving in downtown Vallejo around the time the body would be found. It’s possible he instead drove to the west end of Vallejo and came back into town from the opposite direction of the murder to evade suspicion.
For the Lake Berryessa attack, he called it in from a payphone 27 miles away from the scene nearly an hour after the attack. I believe he was seen by the girls in the parking lot and walking around because he was assessing the traffic and Ranger presence in the area. He knew once he committed the attack he would have a hike back to his car. Zodiac knew even if the bodies were found quickly, it would take park LE several minutes to respond, and the closest investigative PD was in Napa 30 minutes away. Certainly he would have passed several other payphones. He called in the murder at approximately the same time the detectives from St. Helena and Napa arrived.
I don’t have a name or hard info, but I would be interested in thoughts and opinions or if anyone has investigated any of these angles before.
Just a couple corrections:
1. Based on the Little List letter, it’s likely that Zodiac was an avid listener of The Mikado rather than a reader. Many of the words were written phonetically – including words that make little sense. Also, the words used indicate that he listened to the Groucho Marx version.
2. As far as a I know – other than possibly the mysterious DMV letter – Zodiac wrote no letters to Sacramento papers or LE.
“Murder will out, this my conclusion.”
– Geoffrey Chaucer
Or Zodiac simply lived somewhere in the area and drove around a lot.
I suspect he was a draughtsman of some sort. The ciphers would have been painstaking to put together and some experience in technical drawing would have helped. Possible communications like the Halloween card and "pines" card showed some graphic design skills that drafting would have lent to.
Just posting to say I enjoyed reading that op. Thanks.
My "POI" graduated from San Jose State with a degree in Graphic Designing.
Military possible but a civilian contractor would have basically the same access to come and go. I have a feeling he worked in Vallejo (on the Island) but lived elsewhere but not SF. living in Contra Costa County like the Concord Area would mean he would have to take 680 to and from work and would be very familiar with those back roads on the east side of Vallejo all while being out of the radar.
Military possible but a civilian contractor would have basically the same access to come and go. I have a feeling he worked in Vallejo (on the Island) but lived elsewhere but not SF. living in Contra Costa County like the Concord Area would mean he would have to take 680 to and from work and would be very familiar with those back roads on the east side of Vallejo all while being out of the radar.
Concord is a good possibility. I was thinking maybe even Richmond. I have ruled out the possibility of him living in Vallejo as it was a small town with approximately 70k residents at the time of the murders. That would be a lot of heat to bring on yourself in a small town.
If the woman and baby picked up were in fact picked up by zodiac, she said that he told her he had a job where he worked 2 weeks and then had time off and in those breaks he would drive around at night.
So the jobs I am aware of that allow this sort of work schedule are:
Pilots, people working on oil rigs in the sea.
Anyone else got ideas?
I appreciate that you recognize personality traits that to me do shine through pretty strongly. I’m not sure what you mean by "obsessive compulsive", but I think you are using it as a catchall term for someone who is a mentally "off". My best guess would be a type A personality disorder like Schizotypal, or Schizoid personality disorder. That is still extremely speculative, but such a person would generally be noticeably "odd" to those around them and I think that Zodiac would have been odd enough, but perhaps not enough to meet any clinical benchmark.
I think what’s important is that we recognise that he does display some fairly distinct traits, he is surely belittling, sardonic, egotistical and perhaps given to a certain drama, a rather campy drama if you ask me. But as for whether he spoke differently, or exactly how those characteristics were manifest, I think it would be hard to say. I would just say that when looking at suspects I would look a little harder at those who displayed at least some of the more indisputable characteristics.
I’m not certain he did anything that demonstrated a superior knowledge of the areas he stalked. Perhaps all it really suggests is that the lived in the area and did prowl regularly, but I don’t think it shows a special knowledge.
SFPD’s Captain Martin Lee, in charge of the Zodiac killer investigation, his opinion of what kind of job Zodiac had.
SFPD’s Captain Martin Lee, who was in charge of the Zodiac killer investigation,
his opinion of what kind of job Zodiac had is IMHO the most probable and convincing.
Think about it, Captain Lee knew a lot more about the Zodiac killer than any of us do, even to this day.
Here is an exact reproduction, taken directly from the video, of what SFPD’s Captain Martin Lee said in a November 12th, 1969 interview:
KPIX News report from November 12th 1969 with Pat O’Brien featuring a press conference by SFPD’s Captain Martin Lee at the San Francisco Hall of Justice,
where Lee comments on the letters written by the Zodiac killer and also speculates on his character.
Added to San Francisco Bay Area Television Archive on April 6, 2017
https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/bundles/231079
At 4:55 – 5:51
Capt. Lee describes his thoughts/knowledge? of Zodiac :
"I, I don’t picture him as a man who works…with his hands (IMO Lee indicating; NOT a physically hard working man)
… I never have…
I,I think that…ah…he..he’s a…he has a small job, and possibly one were he does ah……. work with paper…..(long pause)…….possibly at a desk…..thise are guesses.
Ah…I think that the rambling…the careless appearances of his notes… is also a disguise…
the cryptograms, when he makes them…can be absolut works of art as far as alignment, both vertically and horizontally,
and space between..ah..the characters is concern…I think that… that goes more to the true picture of the man
than the rambling notes that we’ve gotten.
Hi, english is not my first language so please bear with me 
Capt. Lee describes his thoughts/knowledge? of Zodiac :
"I, I don’t picture him as a man who works…with his hands (IMO Lee indicating; NOT a physically hard working man)
… I never have…
I,I think that…ah…he..he’s a…he has a small job, and possibly one were he does ah……. work with paper…..(long pause)…….possibly at a desk…..thise are guesses.
Ah…I think that the rambling…the careless appearances of his notes… is also a disguise…
the cryptograms, when he makes them…can be absolut works of art as far as alignment, both vertically and horizontally,
and space between..ah..the characters is concern…I think that… that goes more to the true picture of the man
than the rambling notes that we’ve gotten.
Draughtsman.
I suspect he was a draughtsman of some sort. The ciphers would have been painstaking to put together and some experience in technical drawing would have helped. Possible communications like the Halloween card and "pines" card showed some graphic design skills that drafting would have lent to.
I think the interview with Robert Tarbox seems on the money.
What do we know about the Zodiac?
Zodiac is the name of a watch and lo and behold it has the same symbol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiac_Watches
If you read the page it discusses their diving watch. Robert Tarbox only revealed as little as he did since he thought it unfair to Arthur Leigh Allen and his family that he is named as the Zodiac. This person revealed they were the killer and that he was a merchant seaman. Zodiac discusses using radians which are a unit of measure for sailing and also tracking. If Zodiac was ex Navy and had gone onto be in the merchant navy then he might also dress a certain way. ie the wing boots.
The lady and child who were "kidnapped" mentioned that he had a large flashlight and a young female child’s clothing as well as other rubbish in the car. This might imply that a) he was married or b) he had killed a child and kept the dress as a momento.
She also asked him what he did and he said that he had a job that took him away for a couple of weeks at a time and that when he came back he would drive around at night. This 2 weeks away could work with someone being a merchant marine.
Or Zodiac simply lived somewhere in the area and drove around a lot.
I had suspected he was local to know the parking spot of the first kill. The police interviewed said it was a known lovers lane to locals. Vallejo locals probably wouldn’t know it. The town of Benicia was not large. Even now not large. It did have a high school. I looked at old year books. Not all are available. There is someone on the tennis team that was a freshman in 1961 that bears some resemblance to those sketches. It would be interesting to find out if anyone from Benicia high school had gone into the navy and then onto the merchant marines.
