Ross Sullivan Pros Vs. Cons of him being Zodiac

[BigMajestic]

Wow. Others insult or get personal yet that remains.There goes free thought.

[Seagull]

Gee, Big, maybe this forum isn't a good fit for you. There are plenty Zodiac forums, I'm sure you can find one that you like.

[BigMajestic]

If YOU were the forum than maybe. A moderator can make fun of ones religion no problem. I make light of a layman claiming to be superior than an expert in their field and it's deleted. I enjoy this forum. I do not understand your choice of censorship.

[Seagull]

Big, check your PM's.

[murray]

I realize this post has gone off the rails a bit. It seems reflective of something in the air, lately.

If you eliminate the outliers -- the voices that say either "for sure its Ross" or "there is no way its Ross" -- we are then left with a forum to debate the possibility of Sullivan as Z, as well as the argument against it. Just as we would any other good POI.

I know we are missing critical information about Ross -- so, when someone is very sure it is him, with no room for doubt, I am skeptical. When accusations are made that those who find him a strong POI are "blind to the doubts, and trying to force him on others," I am equally skeptical.

I truly appreciate the thoughtful effort that goes into solid research and footwork to uncover evidence -- asking the right questions, and staying open to all viable suspects. The point is not really whose POI is the real Z -- that would be extremely self-serving. More importantly, who is/was Z, and can we contribute to the effort to undercover his identity for the larger purpose of finding peace for the victim's families -- and only secondarily, to ease our own restlessness.

[glurk]

I'm going to comment here, somewhat against my better judgement. I have no POI (at all!) or "dog in this fight" whatsoever, and I believe this may be the first post I have ever made in this long thread. That said, I agree with 'murray' above. I see a few issues.

There are some in this thread, let's call them ALPHAs, who are saying "Ross is Zodiac, the evidence is there, it's clear as day!!" And they often imply that anyone who dares to disagree is some sort of fool or uneducated moron.

Then there are the OMEGAs at the other end who are saying "No way Ross is Zodiac, there is NO clear evidence!!" And they, too, often imply that anyone who dares to disagree is some sort of fool or uneducated moron.

These two opposing sides really ARE the outliers, and the end result is, of course, um, polarizing. Call them whatever, A/Z, Left/Right, whatever. It's turned into politics, when what it SHOULD be is a search for facts and truth.

And there are people here doing that. Using the Greek alphabet again, the MUs and the NUs are the posters here that are NOT arguing, namecalling, or fighting. They are the ones actually working and trying to dig up whatever real evidence there is.

Those who are in that "middle-space," undecided yet open-minded. Those are the people who really move things along.

-glurk

[morf13]

I know we are missing critical information about Ross -- so, when someone is very sure it is him, with no room for doubt, I am skeptical. When accusations are made that those who find him a strong POI are "blind to the doubts, and trying to force him on others," I am equally skeptical.

I agree 100%. Nobody is trying to force Ross on anybody. There are lots of other threads to browse, yet, some people love hanging out in the Ross thread. I think an issue here is, and I'll say based on strictly my own opinion, is that People are tired of old Suspects and there is nothing left to discuss. Guys like ALA, and Larry Cane, and Marshall, are super old as far as suspects go and have been ruled out for the most part. Guys like Mr X & Gaikowski have been beaten to death. I think that Gaik is the only Suspect that draws the same responses as Ross. You have a lot of People that think he was Z, and a lot of people that think he wasn't. There is some sort of polarization regarding Ross. I don't know what it is.

I can say two things, the same two things that are the most powerful facts and can not be denied by anybody. Zodiac, for better or for worse,is linked by the experts to the RCC Library. Ross is linked to that Library-the ONLY Suspect in almost 50 years to be linked there. Ross looks IDENTICAL to the sketch-not just 'like' the sketch.
His own Brother thought he was Z for reasons we don't know. What makes him any different that anybody else that thought a Family member was Z??? The 2 facts I mentioned above-the RCC connection and the Exact likeness to the sketch.

We know Ross was in the RCC Library, we know he looked like a dead ringer for the sketch. Unfortunately, that's all we know so far.If we had all the other puzzle pieces who knows how far we could take this.

[duckking2001]

Sorry Glurk, but I'm not sure that I agree with you. Are there really people who are saying there is NO reason to consider Ross as a suspect? If so that is ridiculous. Of course there are many good reasons or we wouldn't be having this discussion. I admit I have not read all of these pages since people seemed to be taking things very personally and getting upset.

As for the evidence...there isn't any evidence against him. I used to go around and around with this with people about ALA. There are two kinds of evidence, direct and circumstantial or indirect. Evidence is something that connects a person to an actual crime scene. They would list 17 criteria that apply to the Zodiac and call someone matching that as evidence; He had code training, he wore glasses, etc., when none of those things connect to the actual crime scene and all of those things could be true about a person and that person could still not be the killer.

So saying there is no evidence that Ross owned guns or was in the area of the crime scenes, etc. are true statements, as far as we know presently. They aren't the opposite of saying that there is proof Ross is the killer or the case is solved.

[morf13]

Sorry Glurk, but I'm not sure that I agree with you. Are there really people who are saying there is NO reason to consider Ross as a suspect? If so that is ridiculous. Of course there are many good reasons or we wouldn't be having this discussion. I admit I have not read all of these pages since people seemed to be taking things very personally and getting upset.

As for the evidence...there isn't any evidence against him. I used to go around and around with this with people about ALA. There are two kinds of evidence, direct and circumstantial or indirect. Evidence is something that connects a person to an actual crime scene. They would list 17 criteria that apply to the Zodiac and call someone matching that as evidence; He had code training, he wore glasses, etc., when none of those things connect to the actual crime scene and all of those things could be true about a person and that person could still not be the killer.

So saying there is no evidence that Ross owned guns or was in the area of the crime scenes, etc. are true statements, as far as we know presently. They aren't the opposite of saying that there is proof Ross is the killer or the case is solved.

This is an open Suspect discussion, and if People want to discuss Ross, they can and will Same goes for any other suspects. If somebody is tired of all the Ross stuff-guess what, there are hundreds or thousands of other threads here. There certainly IS plenty of reasons to consider Ross a Suspect, and I for one will continue to research him until I can rule him out

[duckking2001]

I'm not sure why you qouted me there Morf. If you are saying that people who are using this thread to vent frustrations because they are sick of hearing about Ross or something are just wasting their own time and not being productive, then I agree with that.

My point was that, boiled down to it, saying "Ross has been proven to be the Zodiac" compared to saying "Ross has not been proven to be the Zodiac", are not equatable opposing statements.

In other words I think pointing out where evidence is lacking is a valid con, and doesn't mean that someone is ignoring pros or dismissing Ross as a suspect.