The Car Door

[BillRobison]

Call me crazy, but I can't help wondering if he had a boat.

[UKSpycatcher]

Okay. It MIGHT have been the same person who wrote the letters, and then again, it might NOT have been. Right? Is that the consensus answer? We all agree there are possible excuses for Zodiac not getting his own act right, but on the other hand, a copycat COULD have simply copied what he saw in the papers. Right? Did I miss something?

Unless I missed something, the next question is, if the known footprints lead from the VW down to the crime scene and back, then just where did Zodiac park his car? According to Deputy Snooks report, the footprints lead straight from the car door to the steps over the fence, and back.

So, where did he park? It's about 30 minutes from the crime scene to the phone booth in Napa. It took Zodiac 70 minutes give or take to place the call. Where was he for 40 minutes? Taking a shower? Did he live in Napa? Did he park 20 or 30 minutes by foot away from the crime scene? That would be about where the root beer stand is, right? He had to walk from the car door back to his own car. Where was it? It would make sense for him to use the dirt road between the highway and the beach. But there are no footprints mentioned being found along that dirt road, except going across the road from the crime scene to the car door and back.

Where did he go AFTER the car door?

It is approx 30 miles to Main Street, Napa from Berryessa, to achieve this in 30 minutes he would have to travel at an average speed of 60mph. Not likely. The journey is about an hour. So he made little or no deviations.

[smithy]

smithy---I have my doubts it was Zodiac who committed the attacks at LB, so I have my doubts it was him who wrote on the car door. I don't think it was the same guy who wrote the previous letters.

T.... So you have your doubts as to whether the person or persons who committed the murders at LHR and BRS were responsible for the attack at Lake Berryessa? Yes, I have those doubts too. Yes Indeedy.
I have to acknowledge, though, that the door's very convincingly like the earlier handwriting - and that some of the features are very like the later materials. Very. Very very.

Bill - Re:
"A copycat COULD have simply copied what he saw in the papers." "Did I miss something?"

Uh, yes, it seems you may have missed Coffee Time pointing out that whoever wrote on that door used a semi-colon with open dots.
You may have missed the fact that this "character" was used on the envelope of an earlier letter (which was not published).
You perhaps didn't notice it was also used in the second "debut" letter, which was NOT in the public domain, as I posted a little earlier.
You've missed the fact that it appears to be a characteristic of the letters not in the public domain but on the door.
Purely by coincidence?

You seem to have missed that and you seem to keep missing it, for some reason. It's one of those invonvenient truths.

Say, it's still a door thread ain't it? Did I miss something? (Although of course alllll the other speculation's fascinating, really.)

BTW: "According to Deputy Snooks report, the footprints lead straight from the car door to the steps over the fence, and back."
Really? Is that what it says in the report?

I wonder why Snook took tire prints from the area behind the VW if he didn't think the attacker's car was parked there? Funny that.

[UKSpycatcher]

I know the USA is the serial killer capital of the world, but surely it is not that bad, that if the Zodiac Killer was not responsible for the Lake Berryessa attack, there just happened to be another serial killer in the region waiting in the wings.
Or maybe one just moved in from another state to capitalize on the Zodiac's notoriety, because he had nothing to do that weekend. You maybe get copycat letter writers as it is low risk, but somebody to just start killing on a whim, to copy somebody else, makes it sound like going to buy a carton of milk. Surely this sounds a bit far fetched, when the most plausible option, is it was the Zodiac Killer. After the Blue Rock Springs attack, the phone rang at Springs and Tuolumne and drew attention to the 'Zodiac and his car'. In his next attack at Berryessa he again makes a call, but this time he has learnt his lesson and leaves the receiver off the hook. Also in both phone calls his directions in both cases are incorrect, in both cases he mentions the car, and in both cases he pauses before the final part of his message. Coincidence. He never utters the word Zodiac at Berryessa, but he didn't at Blue Rock and probably didn't in any of his attacks.
The writing on the car door is a near match, after all he is writing from an awkward position, just minutes after stabbing two people countless times, he would have the adrenaline rushing through his body, so his writing is bound to be different, than writing from the comfort of his own home. If he was a copycat, why write more than you needed to, stick to numbers, there was no need to write Vallejo or Sept on the door. The route from Berryessa to Napa, suggests he was heading south, back to Vallejo or Benicia, the scene of his first two crimes. He never directly mentions this crime in his writings, but there may be inference to it in the Halloween Card and who knows what the 340 holds, if or when it is deciphered.
Also if the Berryessa attack was a copycat, did he hang up his boots after this crime or did he search for another serial killer to copy. This so called copycat was so dramatic and theatrical, surely he must have performed an encore. He didn't, because there wasn't one..........May'be.

[Norse]

Hm.

Clear and undeniable link? The writing on the car door.

Similarities?

* The phone call (done before in much the same way).
* Victims (another young couple in a lover's lane type location).
* General approach (vague, I know, but what I mean is that he targeted someone in an isolated location and attacked with little or no risk of the victims putting up a struggle).

Differences?

* Method (knife, rope, talking to his victims at length).
* Ritualistic aspect (executioner's garb, possibly also manner of attack, the stabbing is something quite different from shooting someone execution style).
* Sexual aspect (see stabbing - possibly something there, with the other crimes there is nothing at all as far as we know, he just plain shot the victims and left).
* Subsequent behavior (no mention of the incident, no letter in which he takes credit and/or brags, taunts, etc.).

Copycat serial killer? As in - someone who killed CS and BH for no good reason, dressing up in that costume, doing his best to be recognized as a different, already known serial killer? No - I don't buy that for one second.

Copycat killer with a specific motive for attacking CS and BH (or one of them), who did all of the above to effectively pin the murder on an already known serial killer? Possible. But it raises all sorts of questions. Why deviate from the most obvious part of Z's approach? Why attack them in ritualistic, spectacular fashion?

Oh, I don't know. All things said and done the simplest explanation remains the one I land on most of the time: It was Z. The obvious discrepancies are to be explained by...well, you got me there.

[UKSpycatcher]

Oh, I don't know. All things said and done the simplest explanation remains the one I land on most of the time: It was Z. The obvious discrepancies are to be explained by...well, you got me there.

I agree, usually the answer is the more likely one.

[BillRobison]

Thanks, guys, but I don't get the "most likely" part.

1. He uses not only a different MO, but a much more complicated one. Shooting someone is much, much, much easier than tying them up and stabbing them. He spent seconds with David and Betty Lou, seconds with Darlene and Mike, but fifteen to twenty minutes with Bryan and Cecelia plus up to an hour stalking them. Shooting people in their cars, especially cabdrivers, is NOT as "sexual" as tying them up and stabbing them. After Berryessa, he goes back to shooting people. NONE of the other cars, not even the cab, have notes from Zodiac written on them. Even the bogus claims he makes about later murders are all shootings. But he wrote ZERO letters about Berryessa. He wrote multiple letters about the other three murders, but ZERO about Berryessa. I just don't see the "likely" part there.

2. This MO is not only totally different, but all the "similarities" are things that we now find out had all been published on the front pages of several newspapers. The repeated failure to mention the name Zodiac coincides with the fact that the name Zodiac had NOT been published in the papers. Again, I don't see the "most likely" explanation being anything other than a copycat.

3. The finger and palm prints from the phone booth in Napa do not match the finger and palm prints from Stine's cab. I don't see how we can conclude that the "most likely" explanation is that the person who called Napa police was the same person who left a blood tinged set of DIFFERENT prints on Stine's cab. Hamlet noticed a match between those Stine prints and one on the little list letter, but that still leaves the Napa phone booth out in the cold.

I just don't see how the "most likely" explanation is that, well, it was the same guy, anyway. Especially when it seems like blind faith in Zodiac has definitely hampered some of these investigations. There's the newspaper article where Napa Undersheriff Tom Johnson announces to reporters that fingerprints found at Blue Rock Springs, Napa, and the Stine murder all seem to match. But according to the FBI report, they definitely did not match at all. But Don Townsend of Napa didn't tell reporters that. He just said he couldn't comment. It just seems like a lot of people got carried away jumping to conclusions and then decided they'd rather let these murders go unsolved than admit they might have been wrong.

If the facts don't fit the theory, don't we owe it to the victims and their families to change the theory? Even if that spoils our fun?

[Nachtsider]

3. The finger and palm prints from the phone booth in Napa do not match the finger and palm prints from Stine's cab. I don't see how we can conclude that the "most likely" explanation is that the person who called Napa police was the same person who left a blood tinged set of DIFFERENT prints on Stine's cab. Hamlet noticed a match between those Stine prints and one on the little list letter, but that still leaves the Napa phone booth out in the cold.

Different hands, Bill.

[Tahoe27]

I must throw in if this was a copycat, who's to say he too was a serial killer? He could have just been some nut who did this for some sick thrill to see what it was like.

Zodiac didn't use "Zodiac" when he called the Vallejo police because it would seem he hadn't come up with the name Zodiac yet. But once he did, it would sure seem he wanted people to know about it!

Two COMPLETELY different sounding voices. Slover: "mature", Slaight and Hartnell: "young".

There is just so much that doesn't match up here! Looks to like "Zodiac" forgot to write August on the car door and later "Zodiac" forgot it wasn't on the car door. Whoops!

If someone wanted to kill another, what a better way to take the focus away and point it in another direction.

[morf13]

Hm.

Clear and undeniable link? The writing on the car door.

Similarities?

* The phone call (done before in much the same way).
* Victims (another young couple in a lover's lane type location).
* General approach (vague, I know, but what I mean is that he targeted someone in an isolated location and attacked with little or no risk of the victims putting up a struggle).

Differences?

* Method (knife, rope, talking to his victims at length).
* Ritualistic aspect (executioner's garb, possibly also manner of attack, the stabbing is something quite different from shooting someone execution style).
* Sexual aspect (see stabbing - possibly something there, with the other crimes there is nothing at all as far as we know, he just plain shot the victims and left).
* Subsequent behavior (no mention of the incident, no letter in which he takes credit and/or brags, taunts, etc.).

Copycat serial killer? As in - someone who killed CS and BH for no good reason, dressing up in that costume, doing his best to be recognized as a different, already known serial killer? No - I don't buy that for one second.

Copycat killer with a specific motive for attacking CS and BH (or one of them), who did all of the above to effectively pin the murder on an already known serial killer? Possible. But it raises all sorts of questions. Why deviate from the most obvious part of Z's approach? Why attack them in ritualistic, spectacular fashion?

Oh, I don't know. All things said and done the simplest explanation remains the one I land on most of the time: It was Z. The obvious discrepancies are to be explained by...well, you got me there.

Personally, I think some people make this a bigger mystery than it actually is. The writing on the car door, matches writing from all the letters. Those letters contain info, and evidence(shirt piece), that all connect to each other, therefore, a person involved in the letter writing, is connected to the crimes, all connected to each other.

A reason for not using the gun at Berryessa, and choosing the knife, may have been as simple as not wanting people to hear the shot, and draw attention to himself. Also, if Z killed Bates, then he already used a knife,so it's not new territory for him.

Don't buy a copycat killer, he would also just have to be a copycat killer with writing so similar to Zodiac, that he fooled writing expert, Sherwood Morrill. The odds of 2 serial killers in the small 30 square mile stretch, with very similar writing are slim to none