The Hunt for the Zodiac Killer

The season finale aired Tuesday night. Looks like there will be another season as they teased comparing the DNA results from the interior of the Stine glove vs the Cheri Jo capri pants bloodstain. They think they cracked the first half of the z340 cipher and that the undecoded 2nd half is a "cipher within a cipher"--or gibberish. But the very end appears to have the name Richard M Nikson. So Zodiac was just toying and may not have encoded his actual name. There was also an interview with a San Francisco theater employee that claimed that a guy that matches the description of Ross Sullivan came repeatedly in leather costumes to watch the Gilbert and Sullivan play The Mikado in 1969. The Zodiac killer references this play in one of his letters. Since Ross Sullivan apparently died in 1977, it will be interesting if they can get a DNA sample from a surviving family member and compare it to any DNA samples they recover from original crime scene evidence.

 

There were a lot of assumptions made to crack the Z340 cipher that may or may not stand up to scrutiny. The first line or two looked good on paper. Everything else looked more suspect.

I fear this show ends up getting dragged out for several seasons. They basically spent this first season on two suspects.

 

I agree with PhantomStranger about the cipher, waaay too many assumptions. None of the experts they showed it to seemed all that impressed with the supposed answer. Yep, they can stretch this out another season or two.
Both Sullivan & Kane still look like good suspects, but...idk. I don't like the approach they take with their investigation. Sal & Ken sort of hopscotch around the place, from one odd clue to another, never really answering any of their own questions, not linking anything together. I want to know if the two suspects they keep talking about are still alive. (We know Lawrence Kane isn't, how about Sullivan?) Find friends, neighbors, co-workers, and relatives of these two & see if people have anything to say about them. On the first episode they sort of wondered out loud if Ross Sullivan had ever served in the military. You're both investigators, find out. Wouldn't be hard to do. Oh well, here's to next season.

 

sucks in real life that he will never really be known...

 

I have to believe both men are dead because living people are far more likely to sue when you name them as the Zodiac Killer.

 

Apparently, a bloodied piece of Paul Stine's shirt (Stine was the taxi driver murdered on Oct. 11, 1969) was included in a Zodiac letter sent to the San Francisco Chronicle on Oct. 13, 1969. Other scraps were also sent in subsequent letters. SFPD Inspectors Toschi and Armstrong confirmed them to be genuine.

So either A) the letters including shirt scraps are legitimately from the killer, or B) some other person (who was not the killer) had access to pieces from Stine's shirt (perhaps a police officer? Medic? Doctor? Morgue attendant?), and included them in (what would then be) hoax letters. Or perhaps 'Zodiac' was more than one person: the killer, and someone who effectively functioned as his publicist (writing letters for him, crafting cyphers, etc.)?

And round and round and round we go...

 

I watched the first two episodes.

They aren't going to crack the code, because it's not a code. That stuff is simply a bunch of random symbols the killer put to paper to make the cops run in circles. He gave it a look that there might be some order, but it was merely a taunting maneuver.

I've believed for a while now that it was Ross Sullivan. It's no great leap. I didn't see much new here.

Of course Sullivan is dead. After the Earhart gaff the Hitler Channel wouldn't risk getting sued by a psycho or his psycho relatives.

 

Finally caught an episode on TV. Might have been a random airing as it is the only episode I have seen (The one where the code is "cracked"). I found it entertaining. I first read the book when I was 12 or 13 years old one summer. Couldn't put it down. I never thought Leigh was the killer but the book kept my interest. Haven't been to Zodiac Killer | The Hunt For The Zodiac Killer on History, The History Channel | Z340 | Zodiac Killer Ciphers | Zodiac Killer Letters | Zodiac Killer Codes | Zodiac Killer Police Reports in several years maybe it is time to visit there again. I remember an interesting item on the site, a card from the early 90's.





Inside the card was a photo copy of some keys but I don't remember the significance.



Again, as I said it has been many years since I have visited the site but I always thought this to be another card from the Zodiac.

Here's a link to the card, I'm off to read it now

Zodiac Killer - The 1990 Christmas Card

 

Actually, there is good reason to suspect that Zodiac's real name is NOT in the 340 cipher, regardless of what Zodiac promised. Remember, Zodiac promised that his first cipher (the one in 3 separate parts that was successfully decoded early on) would have his real name, which it didn't. Clearly Zodiac had no intention of including his real name in any of his ciphers, so naming "Richard M Nixon" was a clever little gotcha! trick on his part.
Just finished watching the fifth episode a couple hours ago. One thing that impressed me was the discovery of the Donna Lass flyer w/cipher, hadn't seen that before. I'm convinced it's genuine Zodiac. But I thought the whole Mt. Diablo bomb business was a waste of the team's time, as I guessed that Zodiac had gone back and dug up his bomb device, which had obviously not functioned as he had intended. The smart thing to do (if you're Zodiac) is to go back and dig it up. Z didn't want to leave it behind if it wasn't going to explode, after all, too much evidentiary value to allow it to be discovered by the authorities otherwise.
One thing the show's investigators should have done is to get the name the FBI redacted in their solution to the Albany cipher -- I'm not convinced that "Connie Henly" was correct; "Carmel" said that that name was the "best solution" to that part of the cipher using the rest of the FBI solution as key, but that doesn't mean that "Connie Henly" was the only solution.
At the very least the team could have gone back to the FBI and said, "We got Connie Henly, is that what you got?"

 

I was fascinated to explore this from the series. I think Ross Sullivan was probably the Zodiac. There's so much overwhelming circumstantial evidence. Hopefully, they can get some DNA from Ross' brother and rule him in or out with the DNA on Bates' capri pants. (Ross died in 1977)

 

According to people on the Zodiac forums, the Donna Lass cipher is a forgery and was in fact created by her relatives in the 90's to bring the case back into the public eye. I'll have to find the threads where all of this is discussed.

 

SF cop who hunted Zodiac killer dies. Dave Toschi was 86

Really sorry to hear of his passing last week. Ken Narlow (from Napa Valley) passed several years ago as well.

 

Here in Italy is circulating an interesting theory that links the Zodiac killer to the Monster of Florence.

Apparently, there is an American who's around 80 years old, ex-military, who confessed for both accounts. The analogies are definitely chilling, but of course there is nothing certain at the moment. The police is investigating.