Zodiackillersite.com

Welsh Chappie wrote:I mean if we use all the eye witness testimony combined to draw up a description of Zodiac then we'd have something like the following:

Suspect description:

Age: Mid to Late Twenties, between 35 - 45.
Weight: Overweight, 210 - 250lbs with protruding stomach and described as Medium to heavy build, barrel chested, 170 - 210lbs.
Hair: Dark brown, curly with overhanging fringe and a blonde, reddish crew cut with widows peak.
Last seen: Having a chat with a few SFPD Officers 4 minutes after shooting victim in head.

He ought to be easy to pick out of a line up. So we got that going for us.

smithy wrote:...

Back to the hair.
No, he didn't wear a skin wig (that's silly).
...

Since I brought up the notion of the wigs, I feel a need to insert a comment here.

The haircut alternative is, in my opinion, the simplest and most commonplace explanation, accounting very well for the essential facts. The alternatives are more farfetched, it seems certain.

That said, farfetched is not the same as silly. Silly suggests it was ridiculous to even entertain the notion in the first place. I would argue that the wig options, even though they are somewhat more farfetched, are perfectly feasible--though, I would say a crew cut wig would fit the facts better than a bald wig.

There are many possible variations on the Zodiac Killer and, unfortunately, we don't know which variation best represents the true Z. But among those variations is a Z who fancies himself a man-of-a-thousand-disguises (among others) for whom elaborate disguises are very conceivable--and that includes a Z who might find wigs ideal tools in his disguise kit, so those are options that should be considered, even if only to be later evaluated as farfetched.

Consider this: there would be advantages to wearing a crew cut wig, assuming Z had pre-planned the murder: being seen at the scene of the crime becomes an advantage, since the disguise could potentially be discarded quickly and the police would be severely mislead by the witnesses.

My personal reasons for discounting the idea of the bald (or rather crew-cut) wig is twofold: if he were approached closely by police at PH, the wig disguise would have had to be perfect to avoid detection by the police, and, since I consider the KJ abduction a possible Z crime, he would have had to have passed very close inspection, since she had ample opportunity to see him.

That said, there are numerous counters to this reasoning. The first being that a good makeup artist could probably make the wig extremely hard to detect, especially by somebody not looking for it. The second being the power of misdirection: I have occasionally played with stage magic and am very conscious of how easy it is to fool people, even up close, and even when the truth should be obvious--and I am not even particularly good at magic. There are numerous other counters to my reasons for discounting the wigs theory, so I can hardly consider them silly.

In the end, I am inclined to give preference to the haircut theory because it is straightforward, requires no skill and seems to cover the explanations. But, having stated my preferences, I still allow for the alternatives.

Thanks,

G

I've read (and surely posted) plenty of sillier things. I do think we need to keep in mind that Z was actually much more visible at this crime than any other by far. He somehow got himself to Mason & Geary (by bus?), very possibly attended a play (HAIR is my bet...) or at least was standing on the corner to hail a cab on a busy Saturday night in downtown San Francisco before walking away from the Stine scene. Sure, he may have been anonymous up until the actual shooting of Stine but he was certainly visible to tons of people. A wig disguise (or any disguise) would need to be awfully convincing not to draw attention to himself, IMO.

I do think getting a haircut between 9/27 and 10/11 is the simplest, most likely explanation. To reiterate the basic premise of the thread, getting a haircut seems like no big deal but for me it begs the question of whether the Stine composite sketches are really representative of the way Z looked in everyday life. Would an uncostumed "Lake Berryessa sketch" look the same and would we all conceptualize Z in the same way if it represented hair hanging down over his forehead?

Apologies for answering your questions with a question Ent. Basically not answering your questions at all but reading your post just made me recall something I've pondered but may not have posted about. I'm sure someone else has but here it is anyway.

Yes, I agree, getting a hair cut seems the best option in the chronology of his reported appearance and less likely than a wig given the busy Sat night in SF as you outlined.

He may even have bleached his hair, even from black or dark brown. I have black hair and I can attest, due to youthful adventures, that bleaching black hair goes through some interesting phases. First it goes orange, then yellow, then nearly white. I wonder if that's why Fouke made the comment about possible graying in the rear but it could have been the light. Implying that he thought there was a colour difference but he couldn't be sure what the colour was. Makes sense that the back would be the discrepancy if you're bleaching it yourself? Might also account for the reddish tinge, if indeed accurate.

Anyway, just speculating out loud.

The thing that confuses me is that he said "the rest of the time I look entirely different". IF that is true then how do you go back to that 'rest of the time' stage if you've cut your hair? I mean sure, you can just pass it off as a haircut , trying something new, but you now look like the Zodiac. How does that work?

Valid question for which I have no answer, trav. If you cut your hair as a disguise, you can't just undo it after you're done disguising yourself. I'm really not suggesting that Zodiac's default was necessarily long hair. I just think Bryan's and Cecilia's (maybe) descriptions call into question Z's everyday look. He may well have changed looks periodically in everyday life. Hair color could be a one-time only disguise. Who knows? The reason why the observation of something different through Z's costume intrigues me is obviously that it was likely unintentional. He didn't expect his victims to live much less give a description of what they saw without or through his costume.

I also don't really know what to make of that statement in the Bus Bomb letter, a letter which is full of lies and subterfuge, IMHO. He's essentially endorsing the composite sketch while making the case that it is useless because it's not his regular appearance. Could be a lie to neutralize real evidence (like "those fingerprints really aren't mine") or the truth which would only create confusion for investigators. I simply don't trust anything he wrote at face value.

No I don't trust him either but I guess I'm wondering, given the statement, lie or not, it couldn't really extend to the hair could it? Even if he hadn't made that statement. Having a haircut could be considered normal in everyday life but (and I'm contradicting myself here but then it was just speculation) but how could you explain suddenly having blonde hair if it's normally, well, not blonde lol?

I don't know, maybe SF in the late 60's was different and no one would bat an eyelid depending on the everyday circles you moved in. I just think a blonde crew cut would be something that kinda hard to explain but a crew is just a haircut so maybe there's a good chance that the blonde bit is the norm or nearly blonde.

As for LB. I always wonder that given the glance that they got of the hair, it's still inside the hood, right? So where's the light source coming from, and what is it passing through? Was it sunlight passing through the material of the hood and casting a brown hue? Was it passing through the sunglasses and having the same effect? Or did he have it darkened by some form of grease or dye because it makes sense to me that he would employ that on the off chance he was seen approaching the attack site by someone other than the victims or whilst in the area looking for victims. In that respect I can see no contradiction in his hair being altered. The hair being for witnesses and the hood being for the victims.

I'm afraid we may be beating a dead horse because there are a million ways of changing one's appearance and eyewitnesses can just be wrong for a multitude of reasons. To my knowledge, Hartnell doesn't specify whether the hair was visible through or around the glasses, just that it was visible through the eyeholes of Z's costume. He describes it as "brownish, you know, dark brown". Cecilia Shepard, according to Collins (take it for what it's worth), says that she couldn't identify the color of Z's eyes because of his dark glasses but had no trouble describing his hair as brown. If you buy his input, the implication seems to be that the hair was probably outside of the glasses.

I asked her if she saw him clearly before he put the hood on?
She said "yes I did"
I said "What did he look like?"
And she said "well he had...
I said "What color was his hair?"
She said well "it was brown"
And what race was he?
"He was white"
And I said "what about his eyes, could you see, could you see the color of his eyes?"
And she said "No he had dark glasses on...underneath the hood"
But she said his hair wo...ehh...hung down across his forehead and was showing through the
eyeholes.

My controversial bet would be that the Lake Berryessa attacker, if it was the same guy in the Stine composite sketches, probably either had hair or a wig under his costume that actually appeared some shade of brown at the time of the attack, whether this was caused by genetics, hair dye, wig preference or optical illusion.

entropy wrote:My controversial bet would be that the Lake Berryessa attacker, if it was the same guy in the Stine composite sketches, probably either had hair or a wig under his costume that actually appeared some shade of brown at the time of the attack, whether this was caused by genetics, hair dye, wig preference or optical illusion.

I have no problem with that.

Trav - I'm getting so old blind that I can't see my own posts. Amazing! Thanks for supporting the old guy.
WC - That's your fault, for not replying. <insert your favourite smiley here>
My opinions are everywhere, sadly. They contradict yours some of the time (it's hearsay! It is I tell you!) - sometimes we agree. I also think I'm getting "more curt" over time, yes, since yes, some of these circles I've been around before. Sorry!
If you need a pigeon-hole to put me in (I'll put you down as a "Kane fan" shall I?) then choose "Hal Snook wrote the letters and there were multiple perps". That will do for me. Trouble is with that opinion, it tends to rule out any interest in many of the threads, if you hold to it. Most of them. So I don't.
Clear as mud?

Whatever my personal opinion on "trying to solve this case" though, I certainly have to say that my common sense tells me (other peoples common sense may differ) that:

1) Blond ain't brown. When you use the word blond you mean blond. That's why there's a word blond. When you say table you mean table. Likewise, chair.
2) No, he didn't wear a skin wig. That's a silly idea. If you said that G., sorry, that's silly. A "crew-cut" wig is proportionally less silly. OK. Still silly.
3) No, he didn't wear a hood with a wig UNDERNEATH it just in case. Silly! He wasn't likely to be blacked-up under there either, or wearing colored contacts.
4) Collins was building up his role in his interview, almost as much as Ranger White ("Stab me first..") was, back in the day. He and Fouke both smelled the greaspaint when the Fincher circus rolled into town, I would suggest. Likewise Pellisetti, Mike "We were going to get married" Mageau and several others in the Director's-cut interviews. The contemporary reports and statements are contradictory and baffling enough without bringing some of THAT stuff in.....

Zodiac Killer Bus Bomb Letter 9 November 1969 wrote:1 I look like the description passed out only when I do my thing, the rest of
the time I look entirle different. I shall not tell you what my descise
consists of when I kill

entropy wrote:...
To reiterate the basic premise of the thread, getting a haircut seems like no big deal but for me it begs the question of whether the Stine composite sketches are really representative of the way Z looked in everyday life. Would an uncostumed "Lake Berryessa sketch" look the same and would we all conceptualize Z in the same way if it represented hair hanging down over his forehead?

traveller1st wrote:...
The thing that confuses me is that he said "the rest of the time I look entirely different". IF that is true then how do you go back to that 'rest of the time' stage if you've cut your hair? I mean sure, you can just pass it off as a haircut , trying something new, but you now look like the Zodiac. How does that work?

The heart of our concern seems not so much to be about reconciling what we know about his looks with the confirmable facts, as much as it is about reconciling the confirmed facts with Z's claims to be in disguise.

Our problem is one of tension between three principles that apply to building theories about the Zodiac Killer:
1) Occam's Razor, or the virtue of explaining matters with the simplest theory,
2) Miller's Law, a principle of communication that says we should explore interpretations that suggest a person is speaking the truth before jumping to the conclusion they are wrong or lying, and
3) a principle of strategic paradox that reminds us that a competent adversary will tend to pursue unexpected courses of action that cause the farfetched to become probable.

Most of us (I think) accept that we cannot be certain how accurate the most well known sketches and descriptions of Z are. But if Z's claims about using a disguise are true, it raises the specter that the information we rely on the most for his description could be downright misleading: if that is true, he scored a victory. So the question we need to ask ourselves is how plausible are his claims to being in disguise?

Personally, one reason I am interested in Z's claim that he was in disguise is that it would make sense of some of his behavior at PH and during the KJ abduction (if it was a Z-crime). If he was well disguised, it would make great sense to allow himself to be seen. The subsequent descriptions would be extremely misleading. It would also explain why Z let KJ get away so easily: she would help confirm this misleading description. It would require, however, that the disguise works very well up close

If we stick with our haircut hypothesis, which seems to be the best explanation from the Occam's Razor perspective, is there a way, á la Miller's Law, that we can still imagine Z using a (hair-centric, for lack of a better word) disguise?

In other words, if all Z did was get a haircut before PH, under what conditions could Z's claim be true that, [i]"I look like the description passed out only when I do my thing, the rest of the time I look entirle different"[\i]?.

Z's claim would be true if:
1) His hair appeared significantly longer most of the time,
2) He normally wore a hat or other covering
3) He was referring to some other form of disguise altogether, or
4) Some combination of the above.

Since we are talking about hair, I will focus on item 1) above. In that case, I see the following sub-options:
i) He was allowing that it would take a significant time for his hair to grow back
ii) He wears a longer haired wig in his normal day-to-day life.

In case i), we could allow that he might wear a hat or a wig while waiting for his hair to grow back. One problem with this possibility, however, is the KJ abduction (if we consider it a likely Zodiac attack), since his hair was still short. It wouldn't seem that he was growing it back: given the time frame of several months, it would seem more likely he got another haircut. For option 1i to be correct, he would have to be operating on a very long timeline.

That leaves option 2) which supposes he would wear a wig during his normal day-to-day life. I think most people would discount that on the grounds that it seems too farfetched.

If so, they may be right. But it should be borne in mind that many men wear toupees, although, those are usually balding men. Still, there is no reason that a man with hair could not wear one.

(Just as an aside, I have a humorous memory of a local cop who wore a long hair wig in the late sixties or early 70's as part of his 'undercover' disguise hanging around young people. I am not sure that anybody was fooled--besides himself, that is.)

[Personally, I would have doubts about the wig idea, except to note that it would be consistent with an idea I have been tossing around for awhile that Z might have been transgendered in some way. If he did live his life as female, at least part of the time, as might be the case if he were undergoing a sex change, he would almost certainly have worn a wig, especially before the transition was complete (and, I suspect, would have kept his real hair short as full-time wig wearers often do). In that case, he would likely also have been acquiring some skills in makeup and altering facial appearances that would qualify as disguise.]

In the end, I can allow the possibility that Z used hair length as part of his disguise, but when I follow out the paths that seem most reasonable to me, it doesn't seem compellingly likely. By the same token, it is really not disproved. The wig possibility does happen to be consistent with my notion that Z might have been a transgendered person, but as that is still an outlier theory, I can't add it to the 'compelling' side of the balance sheet at this time.

Finally, I think if we are to take the disguise claim seriously, it might be more useful to question what other forms--beyond differences in hair length--it might have taken.

Thanks,

G