Zodiackillersite.com

Zamantha wrote:11/4/2013

Mr. X passed away today. His son's said they have big shoes to fill & will take over his business's.

How big? 10 1/2? Bigger?
Yes - that's inappropriate, sorry.

Hi-

I do have things to say but they might not be what you expect. In 1999, I had a dumb idea that I thought would lead nowhere. I had a discussion over a weekend about letter writing with Mike Kelleher. In his last email in that sequence, he reminded me that Z did not write his first letter until some seven months after his first murders. And my immediate reaction was to ask myself if Z might not have written letters to these papers before he became Z.

At that time, I was unaware of the fact that the NYC Public Library has the San Francisco Chronicle on microfilm, so I asked Ed N, to whom I had been introduced earlier that year by Jonathan Zychowski, Jr., if he wanted to help me carry out my idea. He agreed. Our goal was to look through the Chronicle, Examiner and VTH in a defined time period that I won't go into here. The bottom line is that Ed sent me just ONE letter he thought was weird because it mentioned Hitler.

When I read that letter, I nearly fell over. Ed had gone back thirty years and 3,500 miles from my home and had picked a letter by a man whose name I vaguely recognized. I have been a thoroughbred horseplayer (and a distinctly unsuccessful one at that!) since the 1970s. I knew I had seen that name before. So I went home and looked in one of the Forms I had lying around the house and located a horse that he was running at that time. It's name was Skystalker.

I got a chill.

The last thing I ever thought was that the seemingly innocent idea would consume the next fourteen years of my life. It did so due to the inability of the local police to investigate Mr. X, as they would have investigated you or me. I had to go to the absurd length in 2006 of going out to SF and sitting down with him myself to ask questions. I did so because the police had only run from their own shadows since 1999. The stories I could tell are tragi-comical and are an embarrassment to LE. This is the job of the police. They refused to do it. I did not feel it was my place to do it but I saw no other option. Cynics may say that the police never interviewed him because he simply was not a serious suspect. But three of the four agencies out there expressed keen interest in this man. They were just too politically intimidated to take him on. Which is a shame.

The one thing that I was happy about in 2006 is that we got to meet personally, so this man could see who I was. Before our meeting, we had about three amicable conversations, sort of like old friends speaking. In fact, we were supposed to meet by him driving us out to the race track so we could have lunch in the clubhouse and watch some races while I spoke with him about the case. I believe that by meeting, this man came to realize that I was not some ghoul who had it in for him. Or at least I hope that is what he took away from it. I made it clear to him that I had nothing personal against him and that I was only following a disturbing trail of facts. I even provided those facts to him prior to our meeting, so he would not be blindsided. Some people have criticized me for doing this. But I operated aboveboard at all times and could not have done things any other way.

I hope that this man, even though he had to paint on a smile when we met, truly understood that I am just a person caught up in something that is way bigger than I am. It's about facts, facts enough to get one of the most accomplished profilers in the world to say that I am right. I was just looking to give him an opportunity to explain things to me, so I could give a different context to the facts I was seeing. I was disappointed that he was not honest with me that day as to where he was on the night of the Stine murder, on his previous experience with guns and about the building he purchased in Italy. After our meeting, I was able to find documents that cast strong doubt on his answer to all of those questions.

I wondered why he chose not to tell the truth.

I truly wanted the issue of this man's guilt or innocence determined while he was still living. People don't know how diligently I worked behind the scenes (every day seemingly) for those fourteen years to get someone from LE to ask this man the same questions I did, to see what answers they got. I never stopped moving. Once someone is untruthful to you, that is the red flag that ramps up the investigation. But sadly, despite a LOT of talk and bluster by Napa, Solano and SFPD, this never happened.

This is really all I have to say at the moment. This has always been a bizarre and surreal trip for me. I am sure I did more research on this man and knew more about his history than the man who recently wrote the biography of him. Unlike the case for most of the people who have a POI in this case, I truly had respect for the things this man had accomplished in life. And rightfully so! He owned Silky Sullivan for God's sake! A legend in horse racing. He also (although I did not know it at the time) owned a horse in the 1980s named Silveyville that I used to watch live at Santa Anita in the 1980s. So this was not some smear job or vendetta on my part. Like I said, I was just following facts to their logical conclusion. I think he understood and appreciated that.

My case has been made on many different threads spread across many message boards since 1999. I am not going to re- post it, especially now. I will pretty much leave the debate over my work to others. I spoke out in an effort to put pressure on the police to do their job. Since that is no longer a consideration, there is no point I can see to continued posting on my facts on message boards for the foreseeable future. I recognize the fact that many posters have their own entrenched opinions as to who Zodiac was, which I know from years of experience I cannot sway no matter how hard I might try. I've found it far less stressful after my experiences in the early 2000s (where I ended up in a hospital bed in 2002 with an irregular heartbeat) not to try.

Peace.

Mike Rodelli
dt3mfc@aol.com

Wow MikeR, great synopsis on your journey with Mr.X.

I respect all the work you put in on him and on the case in general, and although we may not be in agreement as far as your suspect goes, I think you have always been professional, and ethical.

I wholeheartedly applaud your idea of looking for people that frequently wrote letters to the editor, and have tried this same strategy on my own. I believe there is a strong chance that Z wrote letters to the editor of bay area papers,and used his real name, especially BEFORE he started using the Zodiac name.(I think he may have stopped using his real name in letters after that).

Your post seems to indicate that you are a little relieved perhaps, and that you can rest a bit. Are you planning to step away from the case for a while? I also would love to grab a cup of coffee with you sometime, or maybe a bite to eat,and discuss the case if you are open to it. You're up north, I am in South Jersey, maybe we can meet in the middle. Let me know!

By law he can be named as in America the dead cannot be libeled.

AK Wilks wrote:By law he can be named as in America the dead cannot be libeled.

Think I had heard his name before, but forgot it...not match to the my-name-cipher, too, true?

QT

Kjell Qvale.

10 letters.

mike_r wrote:
My case has been made on many different threads spread across many message boards since 1999. I am not going to re- post it, especially now. I will pretty much leave the debate over my work to others. I spoke out in an effort to put pressure on the police to do their job. Since that is no longer a consideration, there is no point I can see to continued posting on my facts on message boards for the foreseeable future. I recognize the fact that many posters have their own entrenched opinions as to who Zodiac was, which I know from years of experience I cannot sway no matter how hard I might try. I've found it far less stressful after my experiences in the early 2000s (where I ended up in a hospital bed in 2002 with an irregular heartbeat) not to try.

Peace.

Mike Rodelli
dt3mfc@aol.com

Mike,

Will you be writing a book about Kjell Qvale and your investigation of him in relation to the Zodiac case?

JS

AK Wilks wrote:By law he can be named as in America the dead cannot be libeled.

Hmm, what about the estate of the deceased, or any enterprise, such as a corporation that might be exposed to losses if the deceased were deefamed?

Nobody is criticizing a company or a car.

The dead cannot be libeled by law.

They should be treated with respect and truthfulness.

Well Kjell is of interest to me for the following reasons:

A) Kjell Qvale's founded his business that traded under the name 'British Motor Car Distributors.' One British vehicle that was produced in the late 60's through the mid 70's was the 'Ford Zodiac.'

B) Armond Pelissetti said Qvale was walking his dog near on Maple Street in the minutes after Zodiac shot Stine and that he had spoken with him briefly. According to site member Mike_r:

"In June 2005, Butterfield called me one night and said that he had just gotten off the phone with Armond Pelissetti. He told me that Pelissetti had specifically asked that Butterfield not tell me what they had discussed. However, there was one detail Buttefield had to confirm and he knew that I was the one to confirm it. So he spilled the beans.

"He told me that Pelissetti said that he had a "very tight time line" in going around the block and ran into the "dog walker" (whom he identified by name to Butterfield) "very quickly." He was standing still in a "driveway" by Washington and Maple. (There are no driveways on Maple between Jackson and Washington. Was he in a driveway on Washington? Was it towards or away from the crime scene?) He was not walking the dog but just standing there. AP asked him if he'd seen anyone and he said that he had not.

"Pelissetti said that he "kept the man around" and would see other people on the street, speak to them and then go back to this "dog walker." Why did he have to keep going back to him? Pelissetti later said he "cleared" this man based on four factors: age (Fouke had not weighed in yet making the man older), the fact he lived in the neighborhood (we now know that Z was, like the dog walker, a wealthy and powerful man, as per Richard Walter's profile), clothing (of course, he'd change!) and the fact he was not out of breath (out of breath in his front yard; also this man was a guy who cared about appearance and who kept himself in good shape).

C) Lawrence Kane was, according to reports I have read, a former car dealer. This in itself is evidence of nothing but it does allow for a possible connection between the two to be made.

D) If Qvale really was stood on a drive and not walking his dog and A.P really did keep him around then it could explain one of the discrepancies between Fouke's account and Pelissetti's. A.P had stated that he walked down Jackson as far as Maple and saw a 'man walking his dog' and after a brief conversation said he turned and walked back up Jackson and onto Cherry. Now only seconds after A.P leaves Jackson & Maple intersection, Fouke arrives there in his patrol car and spots a white male turning onto a drive. (We know Fouke seeing this man must be literally seconds after Pelissetti leaves that intersection because both D.F & A.P agree that Fouke had caught up with A.P while A.P was walking back along Cherry Street.) For years I have questioned where the dog walker was when Fouke arrived at that same place seconds after Pelissetti and also, where was the white male Fouke see's walking down Jackson when Armond was walking up the same street seconds before and how did Armond not see him? It can all be answered if Mike_r's version and claim is true because then you realise that there were not two males out there, one on Jackson, the other on Maple, at all. It was the same guy! Armond sees him on a drive 'just standing there' and keeps him around before he leaves to go back up Jackson and as he does Fouke approaches and sees this same man turn back onto the same Drive that Armond first mentions seeing him on.