I haven't seen the movie, but I believe that this movie follows the premise of author Graysmith that Arthur Leigh Allen was Zodiac, right? If he was, is your statement about prosecution based on circumstantial evidence a theoretical statement?
I may be wrong, but I thought ALA died not too many years ago.
BTW, Tom Voight has a good Zodiac site with active discussion.
http://www.zodiackiller.com/
What do all of you think about the letters which have not been deciphered? Don't you think that computer technology could decode them? Might they hold more information about Zodiac's ID? The fact that apparently no work is being done on the authentic Zodiac letters which have never been read has ALWAYS bothered me!
Maria
Allen died in 1992 and the cause of death was listed as a heart attack with [SIZE=-1]atherosclerosis[/SIZE] but he had had diabetes for years, was very much overweight (nearly blind if I recall correctly, common with diabetes), but only 58 years old when he was found dead on the floor of his residence. I can only imagine the stress he must have been under over the years.
Obviously one cannot try a dead man but my point was that in theory, he could have and should have been tried for these murders. But there was no definitive physical evidence that came forth that any prosecutor would want to run with. But there are some misconceptions that need to be clarified.
One is that there has come to light certain evidence that exonerates him such as a fingerprint or DNA lifted from underneath one of the double stamps that Zodiac sent. I have argued with some knowledge on my part (having worked in this area for years) that unless it was possible to establish a
chain of custody of evidence it is essentially worthless. We do not know and will probably never know how that print/DNA came to be placed there. It does not however match Allen's. That's all we know.
It has been stated that none of the handwriting samples match Allen's. Of course he was ambidextrious being a natural left handed person but he could write very legibly with his right hand. But the problem here is that he never produced a genuine written document with his right hand for examination. He did of course scribble something but it wasn't something that could be said to be a genuine exemplar of his handwriting. Additionally, we have two handwriting experts who were at odds with one another. One said it wasn't and the other said "do not eliminate on the basis of the handwriting."
So far as I know the only evidence are the letters and envelopes touched by many people and we can be relatively certain that Zodiac took pains not to leave prints or anything behind to link him. Although DNA was not in use back in those days, DNA came to be known as far back as the 1950s. Allen was by most accounts a highly intelligent individual with an IQ said to be as high as 160 but a complete failure at life and most telling with women. The frustration he must have felt throughout his life must have been palpable. It is known that he hated his own mother and I'm pretty certain that extended to all women.
I won't go on further except to repeat again that there is no chain of custody existing for any physical evidence such as fingerprints, DNA or any other incriminating evidence that could link anyone to the crimes. The best evidence would be the letters/ciphers and the bootprint. They were 10 1/2 "Wing Walker" shoes but my understanding is that no such shoes were ever found in Allen's possession. His shoe size, however was 10 1/2.
But take note of this fact. At the point that Allen was first interviewed by the three police officers at his place of employment, all murders ceased and never occurred again. I do not view this as coincidental. Nor do I view as coincidental that no Zodiac letters were sent during his incarceration for child molestation. And the ONLY letter the chief detective ever received from any of the 2,500 possible suspects came from Allen taunting Toschi for failure to break the case.
One more thing, Bill Armstrong, the second primary detective tried for some 11 days to break the story of Don Cheney, Allen's chief accuser and was unable to do so. There are others who would be called to testify in such a trial. Allen's main defense would have been that the prosecution couldn't "prove" he did the crimes. I would have bet the farm he would not have taken the witness stand.
At the very least, a trial would be held and we would have seen who held the stronger hand. We'll never know, of course, but these are just as few of the issues that would have come to light.
The ciphers are only of interest to me in that they allow the essential information to be relayed which was soon accomplished early on. Other than that, I don't view them as particularly important nor interesting. Zodiac would lie and even lie about his lies. They are interesting artifacts but hardly more in my opinion.
One final point and I will be quiet. Who stands to gain by keeping this controversy alive? As I have said, follow the money. There are people today who are picking over the bones of Zodiac and will keep this case alive for a century or more. As the individual I referenced said, they do NOT want this case solved and I concur completely.