Circumstantial Evidence

[AK Wilks]

AK Wilks: Excellent work Jelberg. I made a few comments and added additional evidence to supplement what you did.

Jelberg: The following is a list of strictly circumstantial evidence, pertaining to TJK.

*** If this is not your cup of tea, please read no further. ***

To begin, here is a link to TJK's psychological evaluation after his arrest for the UNABOMB crimes. It is very interesting and contains some fascinating similarities to Zodiac's mentality.

Ted's pivotal crisis in 1966 is detailed:




In his own admission, he was having these thoughts LONG before he would send his first bomb as the unabomber.

After reading that, the following stuck out like a sore thumb.


So during the tail end of his time at the University of Michigan; He was obsessed with the so called "Ms. Z" and some event caused him to be so sexually frustrated that he considered a sex change, and then after bailing on that idea, he decided that he was to start killing people.

Not long after, Ted would move to California to teach at Berkeley, and Cheri Jo Bates would be murdered in Riverside.

Hypothetically speaking, if TJK was Z, and responsible for the Bates murder, could she have reminded him of this "Ms. Z" or another female he was rejected by? Ted is known to have traveled significant distances alone and frequent Libraries and college campuses.

AK Wilks: As you mention above, in the summer of 1966, most likely late August/early September 1966, Ted Kaczynski records a break through moment in his life. He is a genius, yet socially alienated and isolated. He describes hearing the sound of couples having sex in the apartment next door to his, and he says it fills him with frustration and anger. Out of despair and self described "acute sexual starvation", he records in his journal that after the failed sex change bid, instead of killing himself he will "really kill everyone I hate."

The people he says he hates and wants to kill are many, but they include two distinct groups. One group is what he calls "bigshots" or "government officials", and these include "scientists", "big businessmen", "politicians" and "police". Zodiac taunted police and the government, and hinted in a letter he may have killed SFPD Officer Radetich.

The other group of people he hated and wanted to kill included love making "couples", "rowdy college students" and those college men and women he deems "promiscuous". Zodiac attacked three sets of couples, two parked at lovers lane type areas and one at a park lake.

------------------------------------------------------------

False Evidence

AFAIK Ted was ruled out for the Z crimes on fingerprint evidence. (AK Wilks: Yes, one thing cited by SFPD is that Ted's prints did not match the unknown prints recovered from the Stine cab. But a detective at another department told me he doubts Zodiac left prints in the cab).).

Ted eluded the FBI for nearly 2 decades as the Unabomber.

When he finally was identified, it was due to his brother notifying the FBI. When Ted was caught he had in his cabin
a book on fingerprinting that was actually written by the FBI.


Though the book from the cabin was published after the zodiac crimes, we can't rule out that Ted hadn't looked at other books about the subject in earlier years.



In TJK's court documents there are multiple noted instances were fingerprints did not match, and where he planted false clues.


Zodiac:







A man with 160+ IQ, with a book written by the FBI on fingerprints, who managed to evade capture for almost 2 decades, until his brother was finally convinced by his wife to turn Ted in, was demonstrably a professional at manipulating evidence.

If there has been no DNA profile comparison to the supposed zodiac profile (if there even is one) it is impossible to rule out Ted on fingerprint evidence alone, knowing the extent to which he went to falsify evidence. (Not to mention zodiac himself also stated he left fake clues.)

AK WILKS: Very Interesting. Some of that I was not aware of. Yes Ted left false clues, as Zodiac bragged of doing, and may well have done. Ted once went into a bus station men's room and got a hair that he planted in a mailing.


------------------------------------------------------------

The choice of weapons

Lake Herman Road

Blue Rock Springs

Ted's hand built pistol

All of these pistols share a strikingly similar body style.

AK Wilks: Very true and very interesting. I never noticed that before.

Jelberg: When Ted was captured, the FBI created a 34 page inventory of items seized from the cabin.
The majority of the guns on that list were small caliber (.22 & .25) along with a 30-06 rifle which he probably needed to take deer with, as the smaller caliber guns would be inadequate at distance in the woods.

Ted’s preference for smaller caliber weapons is notable in the fact that Zodiac apparently also shared the same taste in firearms.

The Lake Herman Road attack was committed with a .22 pistol.

The cops mentioned a J.C. Higgins Model 80 as the potential weapon used. This is a .22 pistol used for target practice/camping. While looking for information about that gun, I came across this page which basically says the gun is a Sears branded High Standard Duramatic pistol.



So, when Z mentioned:



it would seem he was referring to the Sears Catalog/Wish book.


anything remind you of Z????

AK Wilks: Wow. Odd, specific and disturbing. Yes both Zodiac and Ted Kaczynski used .22 pistols. But it is even more specific than that. Both owned and used Winchester Western .22 Super X ammo. Both had guns with flashlights attached to the barrel. In a sniper attack, Kaczynski shot a worker at a mining site with a rifle. Zodiac threatened a sniper attack to shoot school kids on a bus with a rifle.



Items confiscated from Ted’s cabin.

Note the old school box of polyethylene sheeting from Sears (to waterproof matches – per TJK).

What I found more interesting was the mention that "Sears dropped the JC Higgins name in favor of Ted Williams in 1961".


You may be thinking that is just a weird fluke and I am grasping at straws, but bear with me...

When looking up info on Ted Williams the following things are what made me look deeper.

Ted Williams was a baseball player for the Boston Redsox, but was also an avid sportsman who loved the woods, which is why Sears decided to use his name as a brand. He also served in the Korean war which was no doubt covered in the newspapers in the early 50's


-aside from the fact that an egocentric killer (TJK) might like a gun that had his name associated with it,

was Ted Williams' handwriting the prototype that zodiac used when disguising his own handwriting?


The dots in the signature were asking to be looked into...

Ted Williams regularly wrote back to fans that sent him letters, and signed a lot of baseballs.

Items that might be sold in stores that sell the kind of comics that Tahoe proved Z had read. (more on that in a minute)

Along with the odd placement of the dots, the handwriting of Ted Williams displays a few more similarities Z used.

The use of + for "and"




"Your PAL"




"Splinter"


The comics that Tahoe discovered Z used were from around 1952. TJK was 10 years old at this time; the age that comic books would be very influential.

Was Ted into Western’s at a young age? You tell me…


Another source for the baseball connection could be Ted’s brother David. He mentions he was into baseball and collecting cards when he was young in his book, and that Ted didn’t get why he was so into the players and their cards.



Some similarities between zodiac and Ted:

use of 22 caliber weapons (and use of Winchester Western Super X ammo - AK Wilks)
attacks in San Francisco
rage towards females
around 5'9" tall
shoe size between 9.5 and 10.5
use of disguises (TJK extensively)
leaving false evidence at crime scenes (TJK extensively)
hiding their level of education in their writings
letters to San Francisco newspapers
connection to Montana
Hood found in cabin
use of the term “shabby” to describe appearance
disliked being labeled as "sick" (court document show TJK was adamant about this)


the list goes on and on...

But all of this is just circumstantial evidence.

AK Wilks: Not only did Zodiac and Ted Kaczynski both have a connection to Montana, but both had a connection to Deer Lodge, Montana.

KACZYNSKI AND ZODIAC CONNECTION TO DEER LODGE, MONTANA

One very interesting fact: Zodiac said on 9/27/69 to Bryan Hartnell that he had escaped from "Deer Lodge, Montana", an obscure small town that has a state prison. How many people in California would have heard of that town, and why would it be on their minds that they would mention it? I think the number would be very small. But Ted had just driven through or by this tiny town in the middle of nowhere with his brother weeks earlier, and he remarked how beautiful an area it was. It made such an impression that it was within an hour of where Ted would buy the cabin he would live in the rest of his life. Driving through Deer Lodge, Montana, a few weeks before Zodiac mentioned it to Hartnell, Ted would have seen the signs warning " Prison Area Do Not PickUp Hitchhikers" and "Deer Lodge State Prison".

[snooter]

In regards to group 2 of his hit list what association would tk have had with stine?????..how would tk have known if stine was a male pimp unless he knew the guy???..the other known z crimes all involved couples so his manifest of hate may have some accuracy/legitimate value in regards to those who think z is tk..was stine known to pick up girls in his cab for personal use?????

[AK Wilks]

Maybe I misunderstood you, but I'm not aware of any evidence that Stine was ever a pimp. Where did you get that from or what evidence have you seen that would suggest that?

In any event, all the evidence I have seen shows that Zodiac simply called for a cab that night, not having any idea as to which particular cab driver would respond to the call.

There have been several newspaper articles that had noted that Zodiac only kills in rural areas. Several newspaper articles also noted that only once had he killed both the male and female in his attacks, and twice had done attacks that killed the woman but left the man alive.

There was some talk or insinuation that Zodiac wasn't tough enough to kill a man, or at least that is likely how Zodiac interpreted it. I think he deliberately wanted to kill a man, and kill somebody in the big city of San Francisco, to prove a point.

So he called for a cab that night, knowing that a male driver would respond, without having any idea who that particular driver it would be.

[snooter]

I guess what i am trying to connect is why tk would have even bothered with stine..tk and the couples i can see...but stine is the odd ball with tk as z in my opinion...i have often entertained the notion stine knew something..and may be he knew too much....wag guess on my part though...dam great read in here last few days

[Zresearch]

One more thing that caught my attention. Would anyone else describe this guy as having a "large face" and "pompadour hairdo"?

Very large face.

Correct hair as well.

Imagine that photo with some black horn-Rim glasses...

(Everybody has a suspect who looks like "zodiac", so looks alone are only an "add on", very interesting though. That photo looks like what you imagine Mike Mageau's shooter would look like... )

[Zresearch]

I guess what i am trying to connect is why tk would have even bothered with stine..tk and the couples i can see...but stine is the odd ball with tk as z in my opinion...i have often entertained the notion stine knew something..and may be he knew too much....wag guess on my part though...dam great read in here last few days

I feel somewhat foolish repeating this, no offense to my friend, but:

One of my friends feels stine was somehow involved in the zodiac murders. She points out how stine looks like the zodiac sketches, and how the stine killing was a diversion from zodiac's Modus operandi. She speculates that stine was involved, and that he became a risk, so he was shot.

I don't buy it, and as I said, I honestly do not like repeating it, but it seemed relevant to your post...

[Zresearch]

AK Wilks: Excellent work Jelberg. I made a few comments and added additional evidence to supplement what you did.

Jelberg: The following is a list of strictly circumstantial evidence, pertaining to TJK.

*** If this is not your cup of tea, please read no further. ***

To begin, here is a link to TJK's psychological evaluation after his arrest for the UNABOMB crimes. It is very interesting and contains some fascinating similarities to Zodiac's mentality.

Ted's pivotal crisis in 1966 is detailed:




In his own admission, he was having these thoughts LONG before he would send his first bomb as the unabomber.

After reading that, the following stuck out like a sore thumb.


So during the tail end of his time at the University of Michigan; He was obsessed with the so called "Ms. Z" and some event caused him to be so sexually frustrated that he considered a sex change, and then after bailing on that idea, he decided that he was to start killing people.

Not long after, Ted would move to California to teach at Berkeley, and Cheri Jo Bates would be murdered in Riverside.

Hypothetically speaking, if TJK was Z, and responsible for the Bates murder, could she have reminded him of this "Ms. Z" or another female he was rejected by? Ted is known to have traveled significant distances alone and frequent Libraries and college campuses.

AK Wilks: As you mention above, in the summer of 1966, most likely late August/early September 1966, Ted Kaczynski records a break through moment in his life. He is a genius, yet socially alienated and isolated. He describes hearing the sound of couples having sex in the apartment next door to his, and he says it fills him with frustration and anger. Out of despair and self described "acute sexual starvation", he records in his journal that after the failed sex change bid, instead of killing himself he will "really kill everyone I hate."

The people he says he hates and wants to kill are many, but they include two distinct groups. One group is what he calls "bigshots" or "government officials", and these include "scientists", "big businessmen", "politicians" and "police". Zodiac taunted police and the government, and hinted in a letter he may have killed SFPD Officer Radetich.

The other group of people he hated and wanted to kill included love making "couples", "rowdy college students" and those college men and women he deems "promiscuous". Zodiac attacked three sets of couples, two parked at lovers lane type areas and one at a park lake.

------------------------------------------------------------

False Evidence

AFAIK Ted was ruled out for the Z crimes on fingerprint evidence. (AK Wilks: Yes, one thing cited by SFPD is that Ted's prints did not match the unknown prints recovered from the Stine cab. But a detective at another department told me he doubts Zodiac left prints in the cab).).

Ted eluded the FBI for nearly 2 decades as the Unabomber.

When he finally was identified, it was due to his brother notifying the FBI. When Ted was caught he had in his cabin
a book on fingerprinting that was actually written by the FBI.


Though the book from the cabin was published after the zodiac crimes, we can't rule out that Ted hadn't looked at other books about the subject in earlier years.



In TJK's court documents there are multiple noted instances were fingerprints did not match, and where he planted false clues.


Zodiac:







A man with 160+ IQ, with a book written by the FBI on fingerprints, who managed to evade capture for almost 2 decades, until his brother was finally convinced by his wife to turn Ted in, was demonstrably a professional at manipulating evidence.

If there has been no DNA profile comparison to the supposed zodiac profile (if there even is one) it is impossible to rule out Ted on fingerprint evidence alone, knowing the extent to which he went to falsify evidence. (Not to mention zodiac himself also stated he left fake clues.)

AK WILKS: Very Interesting. Some of that I was not aware of. Yes Ted left false clues, as Zodiac bragged of doing, and may well have done. Ted once went into a bus station men's room and got a hair that he planted in a mailing.


------------------------------------------------------------

The choice of weapons

Lake Herman Road

Blue Rock Springs

Ted's hand built pistol

All of these pistols share a strikingly similar body style.

AK Wilks: Very true and very interesting. I never noticed that before.

Jelberg: When Ted was captured, the FBI created a 34 page inventory of items seized from the cabin.
The majority of the guns on that list were small caliber (.22 & .25) along with a 30-06 rifle which he probably needed to take deer with, as the smaller caliber guns would be inadequate at distance in the woods.

Ted’s preference for smaller caliber weapons is notable in the fact that Zodiac apparently also shared the same taste in firearms.

The Lake Herman Road attack was committed with a .22 pistol.

The cops mentioned a J.C. Higgins Model 80 as the potential weapon used. This is a .22 pistol used for target practice/camping. While looking for information about that gun, I came across this page which basically says the gun is a Sears branded High Standard Duramatic pistol.



So, when Z mentioned:



it would seem he was referring to the Sears Catalog/Wish book.


anything remind you of Z????

AK Wilks: Wow. Odd, specific and disturbing. Yes both Zodiac and Ted Kaczynski used .22 pistols. But it is even more specific than that. Both owned and used Winchester Western .22 Super X ammo. Both had guns with flashlights attached to the barrel. In a sniper attack, Kaczynski shot a worker at a mining site with a rifle. Zodiac threatened a sniper attack to shoot school kids on a bus with a rifle.



Items confiscated from Ted’s cabin.

Note the old school box of polyethylene sheeting from Sears (to waterproof matches – per TJK).

What I found more interesting was the mention that "Sears dropped the JC Higgins name in favor of Ted Williams in 1961".


You may be thinking that is just a weird fluke and I am grasping at straws, but bear with me...

When looking up info on Ted Williams the following things are what made me look deeper.

Ted Williams was a baseball player for the Boston Redsox, but was also an avid sportsman who loved the woods, which is why Sears decided to use his name as a brand. He also served in the Korean war which was no doubt covered in the newspapers in the early 50's


-aside from the fact that an egocentric killer (TJK) might like a gun that had his name associated with it,

was Ted Williams' handwriting the prototype that zodiac used when disguising his own handwriting?


The dots in the signature were asking to be looked into...

Ted Williams regularly wrote back to fans that sent him letters, and signed a lot of baseballs.

Items that might be sold in stores that sell the kind of comics that Tahoe proved Z had read. (more on that in a minute)

Along with the odd placement of the dots, the handwriting of Ted Williams displays a few more similarities Z used.

The use of + for "and"




"Your PAL"




"Splinter"


The comics that Tahoe discovered Z used were from around 1952. TJK was 10 years old at this time; the age that comic books would be very influential.

Was Ted into Western’s at a young age? You tell me…


Another source for the baseball connection could be Ted’s brother David. He mentions he was into baseball and collecting cards when he was young in his book, and that Ted didn’t get why he was so into the players and their cards.



Some similarities between zodiac and Ted:

use of 22 caliber weapons (and use of Winchester Western Super X ammo - AK Wilks)
attacks in San Francisco
rage towards females
around 5'9" tall
shoe size between 9.5 and 10.5
use of disguises (TJK extensively)
leaving false evidence at crime scenes (TJK extensively)
hiding their level of education in their writings
letters to San Francisco newspapers
connection to Montana
Hood found in cabin
use of the term “shabby” to describe appearance
disliked being labeled as "sick" (court document show TJK was adamant about this)


the list goes on and on...

But all of this is just circumstantial evidence.

AK Wilks: Not only did Zodiac and Ted Kaczynski both have a connection to Montana, but both had a connection to Deer Lodge, Montana.

KACZYNSKI AND ZODIAC CONNECTION TO DEER LODGE, MONTANA

One very interesting fact: Zodiac said on 9/27/69 to Bryan Hartnell that he had escaped from "Deer Lodge, Montana", an obscure small town that has a state prison. How many people in California would have heard of that town, and why would it be on their minds that they would mention it? I think the number would be very small. But Ted had just driven through or by this tiny town in the middle of nowhere with his brother weeks earlier, and he remarked how beautiful an area it was. It made such an impression that it was within an hour of where Ted would buy the cabin he would live in the rest of his life. Driving through Deer Lodge, Montana, a few weeks before Zodiac mentioned it to Hartnell, Ted would have seen the signs warning " Prison Area Do Not PickUp Hitchhikers" and "Deer Lodge State Prison".

This entire post and response is great.

As was mentioned, like curiouscat, when I first was presented with this theory I was dismissive and skeptical, it was one of those "eye roll" type moments, but the case made here is incredibly convincing, it is very well organized and follows good investigative principals. It has definitely made me take this theory quite a but more seriously. Good stuff. Great use of facts and evidence.

[Jelberg]

0

[AK Wilks]

Good points Jelberg. Additional comp of the SF Zodiac sketch and Ted Kaczynski.



Ted decided he would rather face the death penalty than have his lawyers say he was insane. As the Bates letter writer said "I am not sick", Ted said "I am not a sickie. They were going to portray me as a sickie."

Ted is a hero to some people in the anarchist primitivist movement and the radical environmental groups. He is interviewed by college professors and cited in journals. They view him as a political terrorist, a leader in a cause, someone who fought against big corporations and technology.

The Zodiac is a serial killer, viewed in the category of Jack the Ripper and Ted Bundy, a sick psychopath who shot teenagers in the back, a lovers lane stalker who took out his sexual frustrations on innocent men and women with a gun or knife. Zodiac does get some "praise" for being a genius, going uncaught and making unsolvable codes. Yet these are overshadowed by killing teens and the label as a psycho.

I think Ted is happy with how he is viewed now. Other than teasing references, like signing his name with a huge Z, he will not admit to being Zodiac.

Gary Greenberg noted that Ted Kaczynski would often sign his letters with a large "Z" underneath the signature. He wondered if this was like a "Mark of Zorro". I have never seen anything to indicate Kaczynski would have been a fan of those old adventure films.

Ted also told a psychiatrist he had an "obsession" with a "Ms. Z" during his graduate school years, though no evidence suggests he had a relationship with any woman, let alone one with a rare last name starting with a "Z". Was "Ms. Z" his code word for Zodiac? Or if a real woman, is naming her "Z" a reflection of an obsession with the letter "Z"? Ted also spray painted a Yggdrasil symbol, also known as the Algiz Rune, at the campus of a target. The Algiz Rune translates to English as the letter "Z".

Is the large "Z" under his name meant to conjure up Zodiac?




Another Zodiac - Kaczymski comp. Note the similarities of jaw and facial structure.

[Daxide]

Good points Jelberg. Additional comp of the SF Zodiac sketch and Ted Kaczynski.



Ted decided he would rather face the death penalty than have his lawyers say he was insane. As the Bates letter writer said "I am not sick", Ted said "I am not a sickie. They were going to portray me as a sickie."

Ted is a hero to some people in the anarchist primitivist movement and the radical environmental groups. He is interviewed by college professors and cited in journals. They view him as a political terrorist, a leader in a cause, someone who fought against big corporations and technology.

The Zodiac is a serial killer, viewed in the category of Jack the Ripper and Ted Bundy, a sick psychopath who shot teenagers in the back, a lovers lane stalker who took out his sexual frustrations on innocent men and women with a gun or knife. Zodiac does get some "praise" for being a genius, going uncaught and making unsolvable codes. Yet these are overshadowed by killing teens and the label as a psycho.

I think Ted is happy with how he is viewed now. Other than teasing references, like signing his name with a huge Z, he will not admit to being Zodiac.

Gary Greenberg noted that Ted Kaczynski would often sign his letters with a large "Z" underneath the signature. He wondered if this was like a "Mark of Zorro". I have never seen anything to indicate Kaczynski would have been a fan of those old adventure films.

Ted also told a psychiatrist he had an "obsession" with a "Ms. Z" during his graduate school years, though no evidence suggests he had a relationship with any woman, let alone one with a rare last name starting with a "Z". Was "Ms. Z" his code word for Zodiac? Or if a real woman, is naming her "Z" a reflection of an obsession with the letter "Z"? Ted also spray painted a Yggdrasil symbol, also known as the Algiz Rune, at the campus of a target. The Algiz Rune translates to English as the letter "Z".

Is the large "Z" under his name meant to conjure up Zodiac?




Another Zodiac - Kaczymski comp. Note the similarities of jaw and facial structure.

Thank you for the excellent work. Another thing that doesn't get mentioned enough is that "This is the Zodiac speaking" contains all the letters of Theodore Kaczynski (minus the y)". I am not from the US but if someone can provide me with a list of random names (e.g. from phone books, ideally dating from 60 to 70s, but contemporary ones are ok too), I could run a simulation and calculate the odds of this event.