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Norse wrote:

Tahoe27 wrote: To me, the thrill of it as described above fits much better than power.

Agreed. For my money he was definitely both a thrill seeker and an attention seeker.

What he did, as I see it, was to create a villain persona he honed in his letters, the intention being simply to boost his notoriety: If he had a need, as reflected in his actions, it would be to establish himself as some sort of bogeyman that people talked about and were frightened of. If that's more or less true, I guess you could say there is an element of power assertion (loosely, generally) in that: If people fear you and you command their attention, you control them in a sense.

But I have a clear impression when it comes to Z: The persona creation (and then the maintenance of that persona) was the most important part for him. The killing served as a pretext (an excuse, almost) for the letter writing (it was in the letters "Zodiac" existed, in the flesh he was just a fairly business like murderer, or a remarkably awkward...something at LB), and I don't know how well this jibes with any of the "formal" categories we're talking about here. In the history of serial killers I suppose Berkowitz is the one who comes closest to Z in that regard, but his letters are completely different in nature from Z's.

I think he started killing simply because he was sick, and he had a desire to. Once he killed, although his crimes got attention, he still remained anonymous,still a nobody. Creating Zodiac, allowed him to get attention that he craved, and actually became more important to him then the killing. His confirmed killings lasted less than a year,while his confirmed letter writing lasted 5 years

I like the idea suggested by someone (I think it was jroberson) in another thread: Z may have expected a different kind of reaction (more publicity, perhaps, or a different kind of publicity) after LHR.

So he made sure he would get the right kind of attention after BRS, by establishing a defined villain character (who taunted the cops and demonstrated his cleverness).

But, yes - what originally prompted him to go out and actually kill someone was, clearly, something deeper and more pathological than attention seeking as such. I sometimes speculate that this "deeper" part was something he, himself, wasn't much in touch with - if one can put it like that. My very amateurish theory is that what consciously drove him was the attention/notoriety seeking - the idea of becoming a symbol of fear, like some cartoon super villain. The actual "sickness" of his actions was lodged in some subconscious layer that he probably would have been very reluctant to recognize if he had been confronted with it. I'm not sick, I'm insane - went it not so?

I speculate that he drew on...examples (from movies, pulp fiction, cartoons) which he modeled his attacks on, experimenting with different ways of - well - killing people. Three distinctly different, well represented (in the sources he would have used for inspiration), methods: The lovers' lane killing (which includes the "hunter" aspect, the killer who seeks out his prey in lonely spots), the ritualistic murder (which includes the Mikado style, "righteous" executioner aspect) - and the sneaky, shot-to-the-head execution.

All pure speculation, so ignore at your discretion.

As a Bates guy, I believe Cheri was Z's first victim before there was a Z. I also believe he killed her for personal reasons, then found the media frenzy rewarding. And, when the frenzy abated, he discovered it could be reinvigorated by posting wacko, sicko letters to the police and press. The canonical Z killings show no personalized components; they were committed without care to make sure the victims were dead. The point, for Z, was not killing, but continuing the rush he got from seeing his crimes reported. To summarize: after Bates, he wasn't interested in murder so much as publicity.

Did Walter consider Bates as one of the Zodiac murders? I'd be really interested to hear how he does or doesn't think that they connect.

duckking2001 wrote:Did Walter consider Bates as one of the Zodiac murders? I'd be really interested to hear how he does or doesn't think that they connect.

Seconded.

The thing is, how do you fit an anomaly like Z into a criminal profile? If you take all the murders together, and especially, if you include Bates, it's difficult to make a basic argument of whether he was even an organized or unorganized serial killer. I find it interesting that Morf pictures a sick, mentally ill individual, others see a cold blooded sadistic type, some see thrill seeker, while others see power assertive.

Personally I don't picture Z to be schizophrenic whatsoever. I also disagree with Norse that the killing was secondary to the letter campaign. The letters, the taunting phone calls, point to a sadist, who stretches the joy of the kill, by writing letters and crank calling relatives of the victims. On the other hand, unlike sadists such as btk, Z has little interest in torturing his victims, and only one sloppy instance of binding, so I return to square one, baffled as to where Z fits.

joedetective wrote:T The letters, the taunting phone calls, point to a sadist, who stretches the joy of the kill, by writing letters and crank calling relatives of the victims.

I don't disagree with that - he wasn't a generally nice guy who just wanted some attention and who couldn't think of a better way of getting it than going on a killing spree. What I see, however, is someone who is characterized more by the letter campaign than by the actual murders, which in that sense seem secondary in nature to the former. It can clearly be called sadistic - he took pleasure in scaring (and taunting) people and there's no reason to think he didn't enjoy killing people either, on some level or other. But to me these murders can't be classified as sadistic or sexual...or anything very useful in themselves. I tend to regard them as representing some sort of game he played more than anything - and I also tend to think that this game was a one-player one: It was him acting out something, with both the victims and the general public as extras in the script.

By the way, he didn't actually make any crank calls to relatives, did he? May have written a letter to a relative, if he was responsible for the Riverside notes - but those notes are very interesting: They're not taunting in nature as I see it. You can almost insert an "I'm sorry, but..." there without altering the - possible - meaning.

Yes, I was referring to the "She had to die" letter to Joseph Bates, if he was indeed responsible for that one, but also the alleged calls to Darlene's family. I believe Stine's family may have too been harassed.

I agree with you, Norse, that in terms of MO, Z is characterized by the letters. The question is what he got off on more, the killing or the terrorizing he could create with the letters. Ultimately, I think the same underling motive is the impetus for both the killing and the letters. Whether that was for the thrill or for the feeling of power I think an argument could be made for both.

Mike R.'s thread re: his conversations with Walter about the CJB case.

http://zodiackiller.fr.yuku.com/topic/3 ... TES-KILLER

(Read the entire thread, as Walter revised his opinion after receiving new info.)

Thanks CT, that is very helpful. It makes sense to me. I understand why Mr. Walter may think that the crime scene behaviour is more important to analyse than the content of the letters, if that is what he thinks, and that he doesn't have the time to review every single piece of information in the case. I think that's fine.

What I don't understand is David Van Nuys, who IIRC, only viewed the content of the letters and no other information BY CHOICE. Why in the world would you want to purposely exclude information about a case in your assessment? He was the one that was stipulating the conditions.