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Re: 5 Part History Channel Series on Zodiac out 11/14

PostPosted: Fri Dec 15, 2017 11:54 am
by R Vance
marienbad wrote:I think that Riverside PD shared CJB's trousers with them for DNA analysis on condition that History Channel shared the results. When they did, Riverside got a match, and told them not to air the episodes as it would be prejudicial to the investigation. So HC filmed the scenes where the 2 guys meet with the DNA analysis scientist, and then couldn't show them for this reason. I think series 2 will have the results, but we will know the result already by then as I doubt HC can stop Riverside publishing them (I am not a legal expert, anyone know this?)

I hope you are correct, but if you are, it would appear they have a living suspect, which would clear both of the HC suspects. No worries about compromising a prosecution because you don't try dead perps.

Re: 5 Part History Channel Series on Zodiac out 11/14

PostPosted: Fri Dec 15, 2017 12:05 pm
by Skyward
Typically, a show that 'breaks news,' while doing investigative filming will leak that fact to accredited media to boost ratings ahead of the episode air. If a police investigation is ongoing such that it may involve imminent arrests, they may ask producers to sit in information -- usually not so with a cold case however.

With incarcerated suspects, lawyers may request to get questions ahead of their clients sitting down in front of cameras. Riverside police do not want to be embarrassed by someone coming in, using their own files sitting there and solve the case. They were likely promised this would not happen, and by introducing new evidence with new technology, thus the cooperation. Easily the best part of the show.

Re: 5 Part History Channel Series on Zodiac out 11/14

PostPosted: Fri Dec 15, 2017 12:16 pm
by R Vance
Skyward wrote:... Easily the best part of the show.

At least it seems to be the most valuable and useful thing they have done. DNA evidence is pretty solid. Most of the rest is circumstantial, which becomes less and less valuable as the case grows colder simply because witnesses either die or have been influenced by things like this TV show that tend to skew the memories of even the best witnesses. Trying to accurately recall something from 50 years ago that may not have even seemed significant at the time is a monumental task. Physical evidence tends to age much better. I sure wish we would have had the DNA technology we do now when I was in law enforcement.

As an aside, I think Mike (morf13) knows more about this than we do as he hinted about it a while back. It will be very interesting to see the outcome in the coming days, months or years.

Re: 5 Part History Channel Series on Zodiac out 11/14

PostPosted: Fri Dec 15, 2017 1:19 pm
by A.N.Other
texas21 wrote:
Elton wrote:"The rest of the Cipher is GIBBERISH!"

Wow. Sorry, anyone that declares that it's gibberish and says they solved the 340... didn't solve the 340. I think the first few lines that were 'solved' are suspect also. I'm no cyber expert, but just because you can't figure something out doesn't make it gibberish. And how about that Carmen.. eh? Yikes.


The supercomputer raises an interesting question. Given the description of its capabilities why didn't it find a solution? If the computer isn't finding patterns then perhaps what that implies is that the cipher is incomplete, constitutes more than one cipher, or (as was suggested on the show) is partially or completely gibberish. I do think, in retrospect, there is significance not only in what has been found but in the fact that so many cryptologists (and computers) have been employed against this and come up short of a conclusive decoding.

Look at it the other way around. Let's suppose Zodiac is or was capable of producing a cipher of such complexity he has baffled all these experts and computers. So then we have this evil genius, no doubt with an off the charts IQ, rambling around Vallejo in an old beat up car shooting young people in between prolonged immersion into true detective magazines. Oh and he has trouble spelling, he's wearing military surplus shoes, might hang out in a community college library, and has personality disorders which heat up into white hot rage periodically. And the funny thing is this person, of such impressive intellect and pronounced personality traits, isn't noticed by friends and coworkers.

What I'm arguing is that after producing a rather pedestrian cipher with his first attempt Zodiac didn't paint his masterpiece with the 340. He just cobbled together another ordinary cipher using much the same techniques he did earlier and scrambled some things round to throw off the people he assumed would be trying to decode it. And if he made it undecodeable by throwing in loads of inconsistent coding he knew couldn't be deciphered then the laugh he would get at these people would be that much larger. Which again, argues that maybe the fellow on the Zodiac series who thinks part of 340 is just filler might not be completely off base. But I would feel better about his conclusion if the computer was applied against only the half he says he has decoded and came to the same conclusion.


The gentleman who says he cracked the code did it by using a hunch. He replaced the first 9 characters of the 340 cipher with the phrase "HERE IT IS". A phrase that was used by another famous unknown killer in the late 1940"s-------------The Black Dahlia killer. Then from the cipher he realized that the next characters had double letters. Once he substituted the phrase "I KILL" he says he was off to the races. Now here is my question. Why couldn't they take the letters H E R E I T I S I K I L L and tell the supercomputer that these are the letters for the first 13 ciphers of the 340 cipher and then instructed the computer to come up with the rest. Wouldn't it have come up with the same results thereby proving that his solution is correct? I'm not a computer scientist but if his solution is correct then the supercomputer should validate that solution. Just my 5 cents. Using the scientific method a hypothesis using inductive logic must be testable even falsifiable and it seems to me that the computer could have been used as a check on his results.

Re: 5 Part History Channel Series on Zodiac out 11/14

PostPosted: Fri Dec 15, 2017 2:51 pm
by Tahoe27
R Vance wrote:
marienbad wrote:I think that Riverside PD shared CJB's trousers with them for DNA analysis on condition that History Channel shared the results. When they did, Riverside got a match, and told them not to air the episodes as it would be prejudicial to the investigation. So HC filmed the scenes where the 2 guys meet with the DNA analysis scientist, and then couldn't show them for this reason. I think series 2 will have the results, but we will know the result already by then as I doubt HC can stop Riverside publishing them (I am not a legal expert, anyone know this?)

I hope you are correct, but if you are, it would appear they have a living suspect, which would clear both of the HC suspects. No worries about compromising a prosecution because you don't try dead perps.


A win, win for both. They get to go with Sullivan and Kane without blowing the fact that neither one had anything to do with Riverside, while Riverside gets added confirmation of their own testing results. But, would Riverside wait for the sake of the documentary?. I highly doubt that as this airing could scare the perp into hiding... and any arrest by now, would be known.

Re: 5 Part History Channel Series on Zodiac out 11/14

PostPosted: Fri Dec 15, 2017 3:05 pm
by Richard Grinell
In Zodiac's immediate confirmed correspondence after the November 8th/9th communications he mailed the Melvin Belli letter, apparently drawing inspiration from the Lipstick Killer William Heirens. So the idea he drew inspiration from the Black Dahlia case just under 2 months earlier is not a fanciful idea.

Re: 5 Part History Channel Series on Zodiac out 11/14

PostPosted: Fri Dec 15, 2017 3:12 pm
by Tahoe27
Richard Grinell wrote:In Zodiac's immediate confirmed correspondence after the November 8th/9th communications he mailed the Melvin Belli letter, apparently drawing inspiration from the Lipstick Killer William Heirens. So the idea he drew inspiration from the Black Dahlia case just under 2 months earlier is not a fanciful idea.


I think he got inspiration from a lot of things like that.

Re: 5 Part History Channel Series on Zodiac out 11/14

PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2017 1:17 am
by serya
Was great seeing your contributions to the show, Tahoe, and appreciate your thoughtful comments on this thread.

Re: 5 Part History Channel Series on Zodiac out 11/14

PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2017 2:01 am
by Tahoe27
Thank you serya. Very nice of you to say. :)

Re: 5 Part History Channel Series on Zodiac out 11/14

PostPosted: Tue Dec 19, 2017 9:41 am
by Zresearch
AmerigoChattin wrote:
egan wrote:I'm assuming they edited out the part where sal and tatman show the theatre guy a picture of Ross and Kane to see if one of them looked like the weirdo he was talking about? I mean, they did show pictures,right?


Theatre Guy: I have that weirdo's face seared into my memory.

Sal & Mains: If only there was a way to check this guy's memory against pictures of our "suspects" from that time period. Oh well.


There is still no definitive connection between this "weirdo" and zodiac.

This "weirdo" could have just been a creepy opera fan...

I mean, if the "weirdo" turns out to be Kane or Sullivan, or Marshall, then I guess this could be significant, but all and all it could have just been some random guy.