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Norse wrote:Yes, well - we can call the pants whatever we like, that's not really the point. According to Hartnell the assailant's pants (or slacks or pantaloons) looked old, and they contributed to his generally sloppy appearance. There's no hint of this in the girls' description of the creepy guy. They describe him, quite to the contrary, as looking neat.

What interests me is the contrast between shabby/sloppy and neat - not the exact type of pants he/they might have been wearing.

I didn't notice "neat".

I read all of the girls stated "nice-looking". To me, that simply means "handsome/cute".

The way in which they describe his dress doesn't appear to be "neat". They mention dark trousers/pants, a "bunched up sweater in front", possibly a white belt or t-shirt hanging out the back. --JUST like Hartnell. The hair is an exact match too--dark brown, combed.

When one takes into consideration everything else they say, the odds seem astronomical there was more than one guy that day at the lake who looked the same, dressed the same, and acted the same.

Depends what one chooses to focus on.

Is it an unprecedented, highly irregular event that some creep spends half an hour at the lakeside, engaging in a bit of voyeurism? Hardly.

Is it astronomically unlikely that this event takes place some hours prior to another man – a homicidal maniac wearing a bizarre costume – attacking a young couple at a different location within the same general area (a very popular recreational area)? Not really.

So, if the astronomical label is to be justified there has to be an absolutely compelling similarity between the descriptions of these two men – one which leaves very little room for doubt. Do we have that? No, I don't think we do. Which is why we keep debating this issue.

I guess I am just shocked when people do not see the similarities. It seems so obvious to me, but I guess it's all in one's perception.

If they were two different random creeps, it wouldn't surprise me a bit, but two random twin creeps (make that THREE) both walking around...no way, imo.

The many similarities far outweigh the one or two that may not jibe...and I still don't know what those are.

And then we have this...again, this individual the Dr. & his son saw was described in the same way.


- Dr. & his son

- The three girls

It would seem he did not want direct face to face contact. He "turned around/looked away".

I find the sketch so dissimilar that I lean towards it just being a coincidence, but it is extremely bothersome that he seemed to have similar attire to the attacker.

If I had to guess I would say that it's just a really bad sketch that doesn't represent him well and that various things (sweat from the hood?) led witnesses to get the description wrong in key ways. No easy answer.

Chet Desmond wrote:I find the sketch so dissimilar that I lean towards it just being a coincidence, but it is extremely bothersome that he seemed to have similar attire to the attacker.

If I had to guess I would say that it's just a really bad sketch that doesn't represent him well and that various things (sweat from the hood?) led witnesses to get the description wrong in key ways. No easy answer.

There were a lot more similarities than attire though.

I can pick many statements by the three girls, Bryan and the Dr. & his son and match them up...sometimes almost word for word.

I'm reasonably ambivalent about whether or not it was him. Or confused. Hard to tell.

I do think it is very interesting to consider that it was Zodiac. For one thing it give us another layer of behavior(s) to factor into his other crimes. In that respect I think there are parallels that could be attributed and in some ways might explain witness statements regarding other vehicles at LHR for example. ie it's possible that he didn't commit all his crimes in a blitz style - get in, get out. Maybe he did 'stalk' some albeit in a loose, adhoc, opportunistic fashion.

It might even explain why the change of hair color at PH or add credence to the possibility that it was changed. It's weird. There's something about it that makes sense, in a confusing way. Maybe that's why? It's confusing ergo it 'feels' comfortable in the context of this case. lol.

What I don't understand though is given his 'normal' MO of concealment/diguise how does this 'episode' fit? An MO that he employed that day. If this was him what is this blatant departure all about? I mean effectively the suggestion here is that all he had to do was toddle off along the coast, don a hood, sunglasses and 'tool' belt and he's good to go. It's this conflict of what seems to have been a mainstay aspect if his MO that bothers me. If he'd even been wearing dissimilar clothes I could handle it a bit easier.

Can we reconcile this? Maybe. Maybe he was going to kill those girls. Maybe this wasn't the only time he allows himself to be observed at length and not follow through with an attack. Maybe Kathleen Johns was right.

Tahoe27 wrote:And then we have this...again, this individual the Dr. & his son saw was described in the same way.


- Dr. & his son

- The three girls

It would seem he did not want direct face to face contact. He "turned around/looked away".

The 'Son' in this report, is actually a Doctor(or Dentist now,I forget which)and lives somewhat close to me in NJ. I reached out to him, but never got a response

The problem with our friend, Mr Creepy, is precisely that he was creepy: He was perving on those girls. Which means that him being somewhat evasive is perfectly in line with what he was doing. Even the fact that he has never surfaced is in line with this – he might have had very good reasons for staying below radar even if he wasn't a homicidal maniac.

Attire? Well, that pretty much comes down the leg sweaters, as trav would say. Beyond that, what do we have? Dark clothes? That's not even tenuous – we're talking about completely different garments. Mr Creepy wore a short sleeve number of some description – whereas the man who attacked BH and CD wore a jacket. That's a discrepancy more than a similarity. We don't know what he had on underneath his windbreaker, do we?

White t-shirt could be white clothesline around his waist? Yes, it could. But it could be just a t-shirt too. Does Hartnell ever indicate that the assailant had clothesline around his waist?

The doctor/son guy? He could be the assailant – sure. He could even be Mr Creepy. It doesn't mean they're all one and the same guy. It comes down to whether one finds it beyond coincidence that two – not three – different individuals, who both wore dark pants and who both acted in a generally suspect manner (but wildly different in terms of the actions they took), happened to be in the same general area within roughly the same time frame (but hours apart, actually, if we're talking about Mr Creepy and Z/the assailant).

I'm in the “hooded maniac was Z” camp. That means that if I conclude that Mr Creepy was the hooded maniac I have to conclude that Mr Creepy was Z. And there are several implications following from this which I'm extremely uncomfortable with.

Z carelessly allowed himself to be observed by three witnesses. If Mr Creepy was Z we have a description of him which is better and more detailed than any other in the case. He carelessly allowed them an excellent view of his car too, almost down to the license plate number (they observed it was California plates). This is incredibly risky behavior on the part of Z. Did he plan on attacking them, and thus leave no witnesses? Why did it take him 45 minutes to reach the rather obvious conclusion that these girls weren't ideal targets – at all? Did he simply not care that three people had his description down to the shape of his eyebrows? Was he THAT reckless?

If it was Z, then we know that he drove a light blue Chevrolet (most likely a 1967 or 1968 model, most likely a two-door model) at LB. I've asked this before, but here it goes again: Is it possible to compare the figures in the police reports (the tire tracks, the distance between the wheels/arches) to known specs (pertaining to late model Chevrolets as per 1969)?

Might also consider the fact that Z's tires were mismatched. Mr Creepy's car was new, in good shape (conservative, as per the witnesses). Discrepancy?

Norse wrote:Z carelessly allowed himself to be observed by three witnesses. If Mr Creepy was Z we have a description of him which is better and more detailed than any other in the case. He carelessly allowed them an excellent view of his car too, almost down to the license plate number (they observed it was California plates).

The Zodiac Killer left no witnesses at Lake Herman Road, Michael Mageau only saw his face side on, near midnight , under the glare of a flashlight and fear of a gun. I'd be surprised if he saw anything concrete, he made sure Paul Stine recounted nothing, unaware of the chance sighting of the teenagers and at Lake Berryessa he wandered around aimlessly, fresh faced, for 45+ minutes, with clothesline or a white shirt hanging out, smoking cigarettes. I very much doubt it. The real Zodiac Killer yet again concealed his identity with a hood and tunic. It was lighter and he took no risks in being identified. The two incidents at Lake Berryessa have all the hallmarks of happenstance, nothing more. Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard were attacked in the twilight hours, when most people had packed up for the day, on the other hand the mystery man was wandering around looking shifty, ogling women and getting a sun tan. These actions would make the idea of stitching up your own hood and tunic with a sewing machine all afternoon look ludicrous, if all you were gonna do was wander around aimlessly without it. The fly in the ointment here is the three teenagers at the Presidio. Without this we would have nothing.

Person A- exits his car at dusk, scuttles behind a tree, attacks with costume, anybody spots him he has a gun.
Person B- wanders aimlessly around at height of the day, wobbles his rope around, or looks scruffy, gets a suntan, smokes all afternoon, gawps like a pervert, shifty.
A+B does not equal Z.