The Car Door

[Tahoe27]

Curious...

Would the writing on the car door be enough to convict Zodiac had he been caught for one of the other Zodiac murders?

How admissible is handwriting in court? I know for things like forgery, etc., it is quite common...but to prove murder? And let's say the man's shoe print size didn't match up to the prints found. What then?

[traveller1st]

I don't know to be honest.

It may be a contributing factor I suppose. I mean if it could be used to place him there beyond a reasonable doubt and that with the implications of that and the info written on the door, and along other things that may be uncovered about him, once possibly identified.

Basically it might form part of the larger picture. I mean at best that's it's role anyway.

If something like widely different shoe sizes cropped up well you never know, maybe that becomes unusable and maybe the handwriting would have a larger part to play. Enough to convict, well that's up to the jury. Enough to prosecute? maybe not.

[onewhoknows]

Car Door 200.jpg

Well Here's a comparison of the car door writing to Peter Plante's writing I don't know if this would ever be enough to convict someone
Do we have a comparison to other Zodiac Letters up on the site?
The car door is a hinge pen in the solving of this case and the linking of Berryessa to the Zodiac.
It does look like Zodiac's writing to me.

[Nachtsider]

If the prosecution brought in someone as eminent as Morrill to indicate that the writing matched that in the Zodiac letters, which contained facts that only the killer would know, I think a reasonable jury would be able to connect the dots and be swayed towards convicting.

[morf13]

I think the writing would be just one part of a puzzle that gets a conviction

[Welsh Chappie]

If the prosecution brought in someone as eminent as Morrill to indicate that the writing matched that in the Zodiac letters, which contained facts that only the killer would know, I think a reasonable jury would be able to connect the dots and be swayed towards convicting.

They'd need far more than a hand writing expert to say the word 'Match' to sway a jury. In this case, the prosecution would undoubtedly be seeking the death penalty for the accused, and as any prosecutor will tell you, in a case where the Death Penalty is being sought, the burden of proof bar is raised by another level to that of any other. Prosecutors will very often seek life without parole opposed to A Death Sentence because many District Attorney's have gone on record saying the chances of a successful conviction are far better when the death penalty is not on the table.

[Bayarea60s]

I agree Chappie.....A DA wouldn't touch the Z case unless he had a ton of evidence against a suspect. I would think one problem in a 12 man jury trial would be some could always relate to some of the writing as their own or someone they know.

[Welsh Chappie]

I agree Chappie.....A DA wouldn't touch the Z case unless he had a ton of evidence against a suspect. I would think one problem in a 12 man jury trial would be some could always relate to some of the writing as their own or someone they know.

Well the issue of the handwriting possibly seeming familiar to them raises another point regarding the handwriting itself and some of the more recognisable, unique words and/or phrases. No one has ever come forward to say they recognise the printing style as their brothers, for example and that the brother also is fond of writing on every Christmas card "Merry ChristMass" as in Christ-Mass. This again tends to make me think he is some loner who doesn't have a social life or a group of friends or close family. Is it really likely that nobody would have recognised Z's writing or certain words and/or phrases he used if Zodiac had a normal, regular group of friends and healthy social life?


Ted Kaczynski's IQ score of 167, which on the scale of IQ scoring deem's him this to be Genius, was caught because his brother recognised many odd phrases that the Unibombr used that he Brother also used regularly, like Ted would often say "You can't eat your cake and have it too" as opposed to the conventional way of saying it being "You can't have your cake and eat it too". Genius Ted was brought down by his own unique ways with words and phrases because they were a part of Teds persona. As humans, it's long been known that we are a pattern seeking species. It's innate in us as humans. We do it to assign understanding to things that we maybe can't grasp on the surface. That why I think Christopher Hitchens was spot on when he said "Our need to make sense of the World around is so great that a lot of people would prefer a conspiracy theory to no theory at all."

[UKSpycatcher]

On the 340 Cipher Zodiac correspondence he claims 'Dec July Aug Sept Oct = 7'. Well we assume logically December is Lake Herman, July is Blue Rock Springs, September is Lake Berryessa and October is Paul Stine. This leaves two murders as yet unidentified for August that the Zodiac fails to mention in any of his contact with authorities. Now if he killed two people in August and suggests this on the Dripping Pen Card, why does he fail to write this on the car door at Lake Berryessa. This appears to fly in the face of the claim that Zodiac craved attention, as he fails to highlight the missing two.
In the Los Angeles Times letter he claims the police are finding only the easy ones and there are a hell of a lot more down there in the Riverside region, so why the long wait to declare this, plus if there was 'a hell of a lot more down there', why fail to add them to the running total on the Dripping Pen Card and elsewhere. My point being he wasn't much of a braggart if he omits his 'achievements', particularly his costume driven attack at Berryessa from most of his letters and two important murders during his Zodiac persona years.

[Coffee Time]

I dunno if this warrants another car door thread, so I'll post it on the existing one:

As we know, Zodiac sometimes used circle dots and a wavy f, dating back to the original BRS confession. These both appeared on the car door. Does anyone know whether these traits had been publicized prior to LB? I didn't see any reference to them in the Chronicle articles posted on this site.