Zodiac Killer caught

His place in history depends on whether he's your garden variety sociopathic murderer, ala the Hillside Strangler, or whether he's a very, very interesting individual, like any one of the Manson family.

How interesting could a Zodiac on trial be? Well, there's a theory that Theodore Kaczynski is Zodiac. That's right--the Unabomber was a student at Berkely University during the time of the accepted Zodiac killings.

An early seventies Zodiac who gives the court an insane political manifesto attacking modern technology is going to be tapping into some interesting strains of zeitgeist. People will be drawing a connection between the sixties anti-war radicalism of the campuses he'd been on, the emergence of the environmental movement, and the austerity politics of the new decade (books like 'Silent Spring' and 'Population Bomb' had been published in the sixties--1973 is the year of the first World Environment Day and the beginning of skyrocketing oil prices thanks to OPEC's response to the Yom Kippur War.) This is the era of Nixon and co. seeking out new bogey men. Tying the revolutionary hippy Left to the emerging ecological agenda will be a no brainer for those conservatives who don't like things turning green. Nixon himself won't necessarily be one of those folk, but there will be plenty of media commentators who will happily be as much.

This is all assuming Dr K is our guy.


LATE EDIT: Wow, this is an old thread to bring back to life.
 
It also assumes that the Zodiac Killer was a genuine serial killer. I have a sneaking situation that we're looking at several unrelated crimes that were tied together by overzealous police eager to find a pattern, and a cruel hoaxer who sent a letter.
 
Manson Family

His place in history depends on whether he's your garden variety sociopathic murderer, ala the Hillside Strangler, or whether he's a very, very interesting individual, like any one of the Manson family.

How interesting could a Zodiac on trial be? Well, there's a theory that Theodore Kaczynski is Zodiac. That's right--the Unabomber was a student at Berkely University during the time of the accepted Zodiac killings.

An early seventies Zodiac who gives the court an insane political manifesto attacking modern technology is going to be tapping into some interesting strains of zeitgeist. People will be drawing a connection between the sixties anti-war radicalism of the campuses he'd been on, the emergence of the environmental movement, and the austerity politics of the new decade (books like 'Silent Spring' and 'Population Bomb' had been published in the sixties--1973 is the year of the first World Environment Day and the beginning of skyrocketing oil prices thanks to OPEC's response to the Yom Kippur War.) This is the era of Nixon and co. seeking out new bogey men. Tying the revolutionary hippy Left to the emerging ecological agenda will be a no brainer for those conservatives who don't like things turning green. Nixon himself won't necessarily be one of those folk, but there will be plenty of media commentators who will happily be as much.

This is all assuming Dr K is our guy.


LATE EDIT: Wow, this is an old thread to bring back to life.


It is interesting that you brought up the Manson Family. There is a website online called the Zodiac-Manson connection:

http://www.thezodiacmansonconnection.com/

The site explores the possibility that Charles Manson was the mastermind of the crime spree, which I don't really even buy, although one of his associates, Bruce Davis, has been considered a suspect. However, if he did kill some of those people, I don't think it was because of Manson. I heard that Davis was a crazy person who would do it on his own.
 
The term "serial killer" wasn't yet coined, let alone popularized, during the period that Zodiac was at "work". The label is also routinely misapplied these days, as is the case with Zodiac. Unlike actual serial killers, as opposed to spree killers and other monsters, Zodiac used different methods, chose different victims, and seems to have stopped.

The coded letters are an interesting part of the case. The first was decoded within a day by amateurs, but the other three remain unsolved. Thanks to statistical analysis there are suggestions that the other three cannot be decoded because they aren't coded messages at all. There is a good possibility they might just be random gibberish, which is very odd if they were written by a serial killer..

As already mentioned, examining the case as the work of a "serial killer" may be an act of well intentioned, but essentially counter productive, myopia. There are some investigators who believe some of the murders attributed were actually committed by copy cats and that some aren't linked in any way whatsoever. There are also suspicions that Zodiac was "burying" one murder under a few others as a way to avoid being caught.

Anyway, if Zodiac was a serial killer and had been caught, the examination of his case and the publicity it "enjoyed" might mean that various "profiling" mechanisms get developed and used earlier.
 
Exactly. Look--we're looking at several different crimes, few of which resemble each other when we look at them closely. Further, instead of INTENSIFYING with time, as has happened with virtually every serial criminal on the record, the crimes grow less severe.

So--no consistent MO. No intensification. A group of letters that are probably a hoax. NOT a serial killer. Probably not even the same man.

And if you think I'm being a buzzkill--let me get going on Jack the Ripper...
 
There are also suspicions that Zodiac was "burying" one murder under a few others as a way to avoid being caught.

This was possibly the plan of the DC Snipers. The first victim wasin the same neighborhood as J.A. Muhammed's ex wife. The next few to cover up any connection. The next few...well, the infamy was just too hard to let go.

Investigators and the prosecution suggested during pre-trial motions that Muhammad intended to kill his ex-wife Mildred, who had estranged him from his children. According to this theory, she would appear to be just another random victim of the snipers. Muhammad frequented the neighborhood where she lived during the attacks, and some of the incidents occurred nearby. Additionally, he had earlier made threats against her. Mildred herself made the claim that she was his intended target. However, Judge LeRoy Millette, Jr. prevented prosecutors from presenting that theory during the trial, saying that a link had not been firmly established.
 
So--no consistent MO. No intensification. A group of letters that are probably a hoax. NOT a serial killer. Probably not even the same man.


Yup.

Part of the trouble is that the general public (who don't know better) and press (who should know better) regularly misuse the term "serial killer". That term has a very specific application.

While there are people who commit several murders over periods of time, they are not all serial killers.


This was possibly the plan of the DC Snipers. The first victim was in the same neighborhood as J.A. Muhammed's ex wife. The next few to cover up any connection. The next few...well, the infamy was just too hard to let go.

Exactly, there's better evidence for Zodiac being a "spree" or "misdirection" killer than a serial killer.
 
Exactly. Look--we're looking at several different crimes, few of which resemble each other when we look at them closely. Further, instead of INTENSIFYING with time, as has happened with virtually every serial criminal on the record, the crimes grow less severe.

So--no consistent MO. No intensification. A group of letters that are probably a hoax. NOT a serial killer. Probably not even the same man.

And if you think I'm being a buzzkill--let me get going on Jack the Ripper...
*Sigh*

The letters after the Paul Stine murder (The Paul Stine letter of Oct. 13th 1969, The bus-bomb threat letter of Nov. 9 1969, and The letter written to Melvin Belli dated Dec 20 1969.) contained swatches of his shirt that matched. Plus the writing according to handwriting expert Sherwood Morrill confirmed that the letters written previously were written by the Zodiac. So Zodiac definitely killed Paul Stine. To the connect the first two attacks he provided evidence that only the killer and the Police would know about the lake Herman Road and Blue Rock Springs attacks so those match Zodiac. To connect the Lake Berryessa attacks, the graffiti on Brian Hartnell's car (written just after the attack) matched Zodiac's handwriting.

Also I forgot to add the fact that the Police sketch of Paul Stine's killer (Provided by several teenagers across the street of the murder location who saw Zodiac cutting pieces of Stine's shirt in the cab and two motorcycle cops who saw him lumbering along a few minutes after the attack was reported) matched the description of a suspicious man provided by a eyewitness at Lake Berryessa.
 
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