Morf vs Horan on the radio 9/7/14

[Tahoe27]

I am SO trying to listen to the whole thing...in segments.

[xEnigm4x]

Morf, thanks for taking time out to do this...although, literally, you only got about 15 minutes of air time. Damn, does Horan ever shut up?

[morf13]

Morf, thanks for taking time out to do this...although, literally, you only got about 15 minutes of air time. Damn, does Horan ever shut up?

Yeah, the show was of a different format where the hosts allowed the Guests to debate without time limits, etc

[masootz]

i'm still trying to work my way through horan's theory. i don't buy it, but i'm just trying to understand his framework. someone show me where i'm going off the rails in understanding horan's thought process -

domingo/edwards/bates/riverside/lake herman - he doesn't include any of these in his theory because they're pre-hoax

blue rock springs - the caller was just coincidental to the hoax, or the motivator for the hoax? i don't get how the caller fits in.

408 cipher and triple mailings - this was the first instance related to hoaxing as the zodiac? so he thinks someone from le or the paper created an elaborate set of ciphers and letters, for what purpose? i'm having trouble understanding why anyone would potentially start here, unless i'm wrong and he thinks the 408 etc was from the real killer and the hoax started later. my head is hurting already.

this is zodiac letter - he definitely thinks this is part of the hoax, but i'm not sure if he thinks this is the first hoax letter.

lb attack - he thinks someone could have scrawled the writing on the car but has no explanation for the person wearing the zodiac hood. he also doesn't explain the part where the killer calls le and says he committed a double murder (unless he thinks this is part of the hoax too?).

presidio - he thinks someone took a piece of the shirt after the fact and used this random crime to pretend to be zodiac for the obvious reason that having evidence from the crime will help get letters through to the paper/le.

bus bomb/belli/cards/etc - i'm not sure if he thinks any/all of these are part of the hoax or not.

the crux of the theory is the changing m.o. of the killer and the not-always-consistent descriptions of zodiac making it looks like a series of unrelated crimes related only by the letters and cards.

[glurk]

If anyone makes any sense of Horan's "theory" please let me know as well. He even said in the interview - rather directly - that his "theory" is subject to change as new facts come to light.

Nice admission by him, IMO.

-glurk

[UKSpycatcher]

Thomas Horan alludes to an elaborate hoax and insinuates the Lake Berryessa attack is probably a copycat, after all the killer refrains from mentioning it in any of his subsequent letters. However this may not be the case. Shortly after the Berryessa attack he is almost certainly planning his next murder at Presidio Heights on October 11th 1969, and crafting his 340 Cipher.
Not once in his entire correspondence up to this date does he mention the word knife. Well obviously all his victims were shot, so why should he. However after the Lake Berryessa attack police withheld key information about the crime, in particular the wording 'by knife' and I believe this was covered over with paper in evidence, so if the killer contacted police he could verify he was the killer, but he supposedly didn't. He did though in all likelihood react to this by verifying his next crime at Presidio Heights. So bearing in mind the author of the Zodiac letters never wrote the word Knife before the Berryessa attack, never claimed the crime, and the police withheld the part of the phrase 'by knife' and never released pictures of the car door, that the Fairfield Letter should arrive on December 16th 1969, depicting in large letters, as if to emphasize, 'The Bleeding Knife of Zodiac'. Indeed, the word knife is written almost identically to the car door. The 'T style of the K is particularly significant as it curves exactly at mid point, it looks like a crooked T, the N has the little extension, the cross bar on the F extends more on the right in both examples and the E slants down at 45 degrees on both occasions. And again draws our attention by drawing the blade of a knife. The word knife stands separate and apart in both the Fairfield Letter and car door and quite possibly in such a manner as to draw the police and our attention to it, to signal that he was indeed the Lake Berryessa killer and was filling in the blanks the police covered over. It was also the first time he had mentioned Napa in any of his correspondence.
The one thing I am unsure on though, is when was the whole phrase on the car door was released by police and newspapers.
This may scupper the filling in the blanks, but not his possible reference to Lake Berryessa.

[b]SORRY JUST READ THIS HAS BEEN COVERED BEFORE[/b]

[smithy]

UKS - that letter and the "'The Bleeding Knife of Zodiac' drawing is quite obvioulsy some adolescent clap-trap, IMO. Sorry!

Mike, re:

On his site, Horan wrote this-
"Back to Smithy and Warlock's question.........

Well since there was no question from me on that topic (!?) like you, in respect to the Keith Power stuff, I'm lost.
None of the "identification of the suspect leaving the scene" or the "Power must have stolen the 'trip log' and he supported Zodiac's location statement" stuff makes sense to me, sorry.
I'm similarly confused about the "Nob Hill" pickup location stuff he talked about. If that's where it was he was saying that SFPD thought the pickup was made (not in the theatre district near Geary or by that breakfast bar where the later murders took place etc. etc.).
Confoooosed.

[smithy]

--smithy, in regards to the colon on the car door. I have to wonder if it was simply coincidence (if not Zodiac) that he made the colon in more of a bold format.

Ya thinks, T? I think it's too much of a coincidence. Opinions differ!
That book I keep posting about, (I'm spamming! Ha!) which talks about handwriting disguise and the "obvious" techniques used, including nice round dots - that material doesn't influence you?

I'm only stating a colon on the car door doesn't make or break the handwriting or provide proof, imo.

Nothing is at all conclusive about the whole mess.

[smithy]

Ah!
I've found this right here on this site, posted by someone called Bill Robison (which may or may not be this guy:)
http://billrobison.com.istemp.com/

Those new (or new to me) articles Seagull posted last spring mention something confusing. According to Keith Power's article of 17 Oct, Stine's waybill indicated he picked up his last fare at Mason and Geary and the stated destination was Washington and Maple. That would explain Zodiac's wrong address in his letter. But an article by Jim Wood several days later states that SFPD thought he picked up his last fare on Mason in front of the Fairmount Hotel four blocks north of Geary and that SFPD detectives were practically swarming that area. The bulletin with the sketch mentions Washington and Laurel, but not Washington and Maple.

What the heck? Didn't SFPD have access to Stine's waybill? How else did Power get his information about it? Or was Jim Wood just a terrible reporter?

Has anyone seen photos of the waybill? There are lots of photos of the shirt, the shirt pieces, the gloves, the street guide, poor Paul himself, but I've never seen a photo of the waybill. Has anyone else?

So there's apparently two columns out there from Keith Power... I'm looking.
Here's the article about the Nob Hill pickup:
viewtopic.php?f=94&t=427

[doranchak]

If anyone makes any sense of Horan's "theory" please let me know as well. He even said in the interview - rather directly - that his "theory" is subject to change as new facts come to light.

Nice admission by him, IMO.

-glurk

Not defending Horan, but replace "theory" with "hypothesis", and you have a reasonably scientific approach. But only if the (ever-changing) hypothesis is testable.

New facts should change explanatory models. Hopefully for the better. But Horan paints himself into a corner unless he can remove doubt from his explanation.