NEW! "The Zodiac Killer Is My Father"

[entropy]

Wait... the document examiner is publishing a book about how he helped solve the case? I may need to reconsider my post about the sincerity of this presentation. I honestly find it sad that this case bursts into headlines every year or two because of someone screaming "Zodiac case solved!" at the top of their lungs. I guess "I BELIEVE THAT MY FATHER MIGHT BE THE ZODIAC KILLER" would just make for a lousy newspaper headline and book title.

[glurk]

I have not read this book, and don't plan to either, but I did want to comment on the "money grab" ideas. Quoting part of a post from earlier in this thread:

The timing of this book seems a little off to me. The picture of this suspect seems a good likeness, although a weight issue exists clearly. However this book looks likely to sell millions and one has to question: if DNA could eventually rule in or rule out Earl Van Best Jr to the Zodiac crimes, it is fairly clear to me that this man is a wild goose chase. By the time we have any DNA comparisons, if at all, the book will have generated massive sales and if any DNA results prove negative, the book sales will flatline and start to gather dust.

I don't know Stewart's motivations, although he seemed sincere in his beliefs in the interviews I have seen. But if he is "in it for the money" I don't think he will be making much.

There is just no way that this book of his will have "massive sales" and "sell millions" of copies. Since he is an unknown first time author writing to a very niche market (even though he has had good publicity and made the rounds of news programs) I would guess that if he did really well he might sell 20,000 copies at best. And maybe make $5000 or so, if he managed to get a really good publishing deal and high royalties.

Writing and publishing books is just not as lucrative as some people might think. Unless one's name is JK Rowling or Stephen King or someone on the bestseller lists, there just isn't any money in it.

I'm not making apologies or excuses for the guy, I don't know his motivations. But I don't think he'll be getting rich from it.

-glurk

[morf13]

I don't know how much $$ he is making, but he is getting some major face & air time, he's all over the place, and so is the story. The publicity machine is running on all cylinders for sure. Hey, if he gets a dollar a book, and sells a million,or $2 a book and selling 500k copies, that's not too shabby-of course, his reputation is shot, but at that point, he may not care.

[Seagull]

The poster annie1004 over at Tom's just posted that Gary Stewart will be on Ronn Owens KGO Radio show Tuesday the 20th. KGO is a SF Bay Area AM station that has been around forever and Owens is a respected radio personality. His show is three hours, 9am to noon pacific time, and I have no idea where in that time slot he will do the interview with Stewart. Here is a link to Ronn Owens page with a link to listen live at the top.

http://www.kgoradio.com/page.php?page_id=161

PS This is a call-in show so get your questions ready!!

[traveller1st]

Thanks Deb,

Here's hoping Zodiac calls in.

[ophion1031]

I don't know how much $$ he is making, but he is getting some major face & air time, he's all over the place, and so is the story. The publicity machine is running on all cylinders for sure. Hey, if he gets a dollar a book, and sells a million,or $2 a book and selling 500k copies, that's not too shabby-of course, his reputation is shot, but at that point, he may not care.

His reputation will be shot because of the people who actually know about the case seeing he is a fraud. I'm sure he does not care about that. The people close to him most likely know nothing about the case and I'm sure they believe him. It's a win-win for this guy. He's not going to get rich, but I'm sure he will make some decent money from the whole thing. Morf, I have noticed you are on top of this whole thing and calling BS on pretty much everything going on with the story. Good! Someone needs to.

[murray]

Here's the link on the Book written by the handwriting expert, who examined this POI's handwriting. Interesting timing as both books are released the same time. Never heard of this handwriting expert, has anyone else?

http://zodiacsolved.com/. < If you click on more, you can read about the author or even contact him.

I'm not sure how this guy (handwriting expert) wrote a whole book based on those few handwriting graphics, as it appears on his site. And it looks like they used the same designer for the cover art on both books -- are they a matched set?

[ace ventura]

It's odd that Harper Collins publishing shows no mention of this book on their web site
( that is the publisher right ? As stated on the web . ) This book has 100 times the attention of their other top sellers . I cannot get the new releases page to come up , but their main page has up to today news and new releases too.

Probably some editorial team is getting a epic ass chewing.

[Zamantha]

A Video of Earl Van Best in court.
https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/bundles/208846

[Seagull]

A Video of Earl Van Best in court.
https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/bundles/208846

Yep! page 4 of this thread.