morf13 wrote:Great to have you aboard Mark!
Ross is my favorite suspect, but he's not really a new Suspect.
Several years ago, a reporter was interested in Ross as a Suspect and had been in touch with Joann Bailey the school Librarian at RCC when Cheri Bates was killed there. She shared this info with the reporter and also with Howard Davis, but it sort of went no place. Details were sketchy, and then he got really cold as a Suspect.
It wasn't until a year or two ago, when i was doing an 'audit' of every name ever mentioned as a Suspect when I decided to dig into Ross a bit more, and as soon as I found his high school, and then saw his photo,I was blown away by his likeness to Zodiac. In short, he was a Guy that could 100% be placed in the Riverside Library during the period when Bates was killed, and he looked identical to the Z sketch. To date, he is the only POI ever to be confirmed in that RCC Library,and looking identical to the sketch is just the cherry on the Sundae. Add in his mental illness, his physical description, and his timeline, it's hard not to like him. As much as we know about Ross, there's a bunch we don't know.
Anyhow, welcome aboard!
Z (Ross?) is certainly my lead suspect in the Bates' homicide, but Barnett can't be ruled out either. This is, of course, assuming either z is the author of the confession letter or the glancing reference in a later known z letter about his "earlier activity" is to Bates (pretty likely) or both. z, though he may have exaggerated his number of vics, and not followed through on many of his threats, appears not to be one to take credit for crimes he was suspected, but not guilty, of. The desktop poem, which likely is z's, at least strengthens the presumption that z was in Riverside at this time and should at least place him high on the list of suspects.
As regards the confession letter, despite its being slightly out of character for z, the identical misspellings of "choaked" and "twiched" in other known z letters, plus the same pathological "mood" of the confession leads me to conclude it's his. Not sure if this is so, but the case would be especially good if the confession letter was published subsequent to z's correspondence which include the same misspelled words.