Zodiac's Identity Finally Discovered? Man Turns Hood/Weapon into FBI

[kline]

Over the last couple of years Ive been watching the developments with a new POI in the Zodiac case,Richard Gaikowski.
Apparently a friend had voiced suspicion to LE about his involvement back in the 70's.
During the late 60's and early 70's Giakowski was the editor of a radical,counter culture virulantly anti police magazine published in the Bay Area called 'Good Times'.
As early as january of 1969 this magazine advocated the murder of white suburban teenagers.
The switchboard for the magazine was located yards-virtually next door- to cab driver and Zodiac victim Paul Stine's ground floor apartment.
Gaikowski is virtually a dead ringer for the Zodiac composite flyer.
His nickname 'Gyke'appears in the three part cipher Zodiac sent to newspapers.
In Jan 1966 future Zodiac victim Darlene Ferrin moved to Albany New York.
Almost immediatly Gaikowski moved there as well and went to work for a Newspaper that was a competitor for the paper Darlene's then husband worked for.
Mike Maguae the young man who was wounded by Zodiac during Darlene's 1969 murder has said Darlene had refered to their attacker as 'Richard'.
at the time of the murders Gaikowski lived in Martinez Ca. very near Vallejo.
In March of 1971 Zodiac sent a letter to the Los Angeles Times shortly thereafter Gaikowski was involuntarily commited to a Napa hospital after going 'berserk'.
Zodiac didnt write again for three years.
Nancy Slover the Vallejo police dispatcher who spoke with Zodiac the night of the Ferrin murder has listened to tapes of virtually every Zodiac suspect over the years including Arthur Lee Allen.
Last year she was played a tape of Gaikowski made during a telephone conversation.
She positively identified the voice as the man she talked to on July 4th 1969.

 

[Steely Dan]

Here's something that bugs me. Everybody thinks Donald Harden broke the code in the Zodiac letter. IIRC, there were 18 symbols at the end they couldn't break into a word.

If 18 symbols were unbreakable then how do we know he broke the code correctly?


I think the code may not have been successfully decoded and everyone thinks it was. Therefore, nobody has gone back and looked at it again with fresh eyes.

:waitasec:

Here's a link that's interesting.

This is the deciphered text:

I/ L i k e/ K i l l i n g/ P e o p l e/ B e c a u s e/ I t/ I s/ S o/ M u c h/ F u n/ I t/ I s/ M o r e/ F u n/ T h a n/ K i l l i n g/ W i l d/ G a m e/ I n/ T h e/ F o r r e s t/ B e c a u s e/ M a n/ I s/ T h e/ M o s t/ D a n g e r o u e(?)/ A n a m a l(?)/ O f/ A l l/ T o/ K i l l/ S o m e t h i n g/ G i v e s/ M e/ T h e/ M o s t/ T h r i l l i n g/ E x p e r i e n c e/ I t/ I s/ E v e n/ B e t t e r/ T h a n/ G e t t i n g/ Y o u r/ R o c k s/ O f f/ W i t h/ A/ G i r l/ T h e/ B e s t/ P a r t/ O f/ I t/ I s/ T h a e(?)/ W h e n/ I/ D i e/ I/ w i l l/ B e/ R e b o r n/ I n/ P a r a d i c e/ A n d/ T h e/ i(?)/ H a v e/ K i l l e d/ W i l l/ B e c o m e/ M y/ S l a v e s/ I/ W i l l/ N o t/ G i v e/ Y o u/ M y/ N a m e/ B e c a u s e/ Y o u/ W i l l/ T r y/ T o/ S l o i D o w n O r A t o p (?)/ M y/ C o l l e c t i o g (?)/ O f/ S l a v e s/ F o r/ A f t e r l i f e

E B E O R I E T E M E T H H P I T I

Dangeroe is probably Dangerous

Anamal is probably Animal

Thae is probably That

The/ i/ could be The "people" I or maybe That I but it doesn't make grammatical sense. Especially with "people" totally left out of the text. :waitasec:

S l o i D o w n O r A t o p (?) is probably slow down or stop.

C o l l e c t i o g (?) is probably collecting.

And then there is E B E O R I E T E M E T H H P I T I which has not been deciphered into any sensible way.

Are these mistakes by Zodiac losing his place with his symbols and letters or is it poor cyphering? The other possibility is that the mistakes and mumbo jumbo are just done deliberately to waste peoples time.

The E B E O R I E T E M E T H H P I T I is what fascinates me most. Obviously there is meaning or no meaning to those letters.

ETA - Maybe it's a jumble?


I put in the slashes to make it easier to read. The question marks and red text are mine to note something misspelled. Here is the actual undeciphered puzzle.


BTW, the face that most matches the composite is Jack Tarrance IMO.

 

[Steely Dan]

Over the last couple of years Ive been watching the developments with a new POI in the Zodiac case,Richard Gaikowski.
Apparently a friend had voiced suspicion to LE about his involvement back in the 70's.
During the late 60's and early 70's Giakowski was the editor of a radical,counter culture virulantly anti police magazine published in the Bay Area called 'Good Times'.
As early as january of 1969 this magazine advocated the murder of white suburban teenagers.
The switchboard for the magazine was located yards-virtually next door- to cab driver and Zodiac victim Paul Stine's ground floor apartment.
Gaikowski is virtually a dead ringer for the Zodiac composite flyer.
His nickname 'Gyke'appears in the three part cipher Zodiac sent to newspapers.
In Jan 1966 future Zodiac victim Darlene Ferrin moved to Albany New York.
Almost immediatly Gaikowski moved there as well and went to work for a Newspaper that was a competitor for the paper Darlene's then husband worked for.
Mike Maguae the young man who was wounded by Zodiac during Darlene's 1969 murder has said Darlene had refered to their attacker as 'Richard'.
at the time of the murders Gaikowski lived in Martinez Ca. very near Vallejo.
In March of 1971 Zodiac sent a letter to the Los Angeles Times shortly thereafter Gaikowski was involuntarily commited to a Napa hospital after going 'berserk'.
Zodiac didnt write again for three years.
Nancy Slover the Vallejo police dispatcher who spoke with Zodiac the night of the Ferrin murder has listened to tapes of virtually every Zodiac suspect over the years including Arthur Lee Allen.
Last year she was played a tape of Gaikowski made during a telephone conversation.
She positively identified the voice as the man she talked to on July 4th 1969.

Here are some pictures of Gaikowski;

Obviously much older;

:waitasec:

This mystery gets more and more confusing.

 

[kline]

Yeah Tarrance does look alot like him.
Of course its been pointed out before and I agree...people shouldnt put too much stock in the composite...Im sure he did look like that but go to your local library anywhere you live pick up a college yearbook for 68/69 and I guarentee you will find four perfect matchs before you get halfway through it.
The codes are a bit beyond me (im a mathamatical idiot) but you may well be right.
Of course I could see him putting nothing of substance in the code or creating a gibberish one just to be a pain.
Or making the references in the key so personal they might as well be encrypted forever.
I mean you know he's probably going to say 'Kill' 'Slaves' 'Shall' 'Papers' ect. you would think if the unsolved ciphers could be cracked they would have been by now.
But like I say its beyond me.

 

[Steely Dan]

Here's the composite sketch.

Jack Tarrance

Another angle

Another Tarrance

 

[Steely Dan]

Yeah Tarrance does look alot like him.
Of course its been pointed out before and I agree...people shouldnt put too much stock in the composite...Im sure he did look like that but go to your local library anywhere you live pick up a college yearbook for 68/69 and I guarentee you will find four perfect matchs before you get halfway through it.
The codes are a bit beyond me (im a mathamatical idiot) but you may well be right.
Of course I could see him putting nothing of substance in the code or creating a gibberish one just to be a pain.
Or making the references in the key so personal they might as well be encrypted forever.
I mean you know he's probably going to say 'Kill' 'Slaves' 'Shall' 'Papers' ect. you would think if the unsolved ciphers could be cracked they would have been by now.
But like I say its beyond me.

Those glasses appear to be a popular style for back then. When the FBI finally tests the hood and other stuff from Tarrance then it will help to prove him as Zodiac or clear him.

I've always wondered if there couldn't be more than one man involved in this thing and those guys were working together. I wonder if any links between the suspects have ever been established.

It's also possible others committed some of the crimes and took credit for them as the Zodiac. Since it made his legend grow stronger and it would confuse the police who were trying to put the killings on one man, he never said he didn't do those crimes.

:waitasec:

 

[kline]

Those glasses appear to be a popular style for back then. When the FBI finally tests the hood and other stuff from Tarrance then it will help to prove him as Zodiac or clear him.

I've always wondered if there couldn't be more than one man involved in this thing and those guys were working together. I wonder if any links between the suspects have ever been established.

It's also possible others committed some of the crimes and took credit for them as the Zodiac. Since it made his legend grow stronger and it would confuse the police who were trying to put the killings on one man, he never said he didn't do those crimes.

:waitasec:

Yeah its a definite possibilty(thanks for posting the links too!) kind of like a Hillside Strangler scenario.
Though im pretty much alone in the world of Zodiac Sleuthers I have serious doubts that any of the letters after 1971 are from the real Zodiac.
Or that he killed anyone after Paul Stine.
Its one thing to shoot unarmed teenagers or stab a bound woman or shoot someone in the back of the head but when he was confronted by two armed cops right after Stine's murder (and yeah I think the two policemen DID stop and talk to him)I think Zodiac just about drowned in his own you know what.
And that was the end of his killing spree.
And your right about the glasses...2/3rds of the male teachers I had in Junior High had those same specs complete with the elastic band around the back to keep them in place.

 

[kline]

You know its funny but those letters and codes were pretty much what secured Zodiac his place in history.
I was making the point in another forum(see 'Are 5 Idaho Murders Connected?' in the Cold Case forum) that I have a pet unsolved cold case right here in my back yard ive been following for years that involves an uncaught killer who killed 5 victims in just a short of time span and in every bit as bizzare and ferocious manner as Zodiac but that case is virtually unknown outside of this area.(my guy also threw in dismemberment and victims whose bodies were never found)
And like the Zodiac investigators and Arthur leigh Allen the local detectives are sure they know who did it but not enough for an indictment.

 

[anthrobones]

What did the couple use to try to solve the cryptograms? How did they figure out what the symbols meant? Is it some kind of ancient alphabet or what?

 

[anthrobones]

Here's something that bugs me. Everybody thinks Donald Harden broke the code in the Zodiac letter. IIRC, there were 18 symbols at the end they couldn't break into a word.

If 18 symbols were unbreakable then how do we know he broke the code correctly?


I think the code may not have been successfully decoded and everyone thinks it was. Therefore, nobody has gone back and looked at it again with fresh eyes.

:waitasec:

Here's a link that's interesting.

This is the deciphered text:

I/ L i k e/ K i l l i n g/ P e o p l e/ B e c a u s e/ I t/ I s/ S o/ M u c h/ F u n/ I t/ I s/ M o r e/ F u n/ T h a n/ K i l l i n g/ W i l d/ G a m e/ I n/ T h e/ F o r r e s t/ B e c a u s e/ M a n/ I s/ T h e/ M o s t/ D a n g e r o u e(?)/ A n a m a l(?)/ O f/ A l l/ T o/ K i l l/ S o m e t h i n g/ G i v e s/ M e/ T h e/ M o s t/ T h r i l l i n g/ E x p e r i e n c e/ I t/ I s/ E v e n/ B e t t e r/ T h a n/ G e t t i n g/ Y o u r/ R o c k s/ O f f/ W i t h/ A/ G i r l/ T h e/ B e s t/ P a r t/ O f/ I t/ I s/ T h a e(?)/ W h e n/ I/ D i e/ I/ w i l l/ B e/ R e b o r n/ I n/ P a r a d i c e/ A n d/ T h e/ i(?)/ H a v e/ K i l l e d/ W i l l/ B e c o m e/ M y/ S l a v e s/ I/ W i l l/ N o t/ G i v e/ Y o u/ M y/ N a m e/ B e c a u s e/ Y o u/ W i l l/ T r y/ T o/ S l o i D o w n O r A t o p (?)/ M y/ C o l l e c t i o g (?)/ O f/ S l a v e s/ F o r/ A f t e r l i f e

E B E O R I E T E M E T H H P I T I

Dangeroe is probably Dangerous

Anamal is probably Animal

Thae is probably That

The/ i/ could be The "people" I or maybe That I but it doesn't make grammatical sense. Especially with "people" totally left out of the text. :waitasec:

S l o i D o w n O r A t o p (?) is probably slow down or stop.

C o l l e c t i o g (?) is probably collecting.

And then there is E B E O R I E T E M E T H H P I T I which has not been deciphered into any sensible way.

Are these mistakes by Zodiac losing his place with his symbols and letters or is it poor cyphering? The other possibility is that the mistakes and mumbo jumbo are just done deliberately to waste peoples time.

The E B E O R I E T E M E T H H P I T I is what fascinates me most. Obviously there is meaning or no meaning to those letters.

ETA - Maybe it's a jumble?


I put in the slashes to make it easier to read. The question marks and red text are mine to note something misspelled. Here is the actual undeciphered puzzle.


BTW, the face that most matches the composite is Jack Tarrance IMO.

What I have always wondered is whether or not Zodiac was either a) poorly literate, or b) purposefully spelling words wrong. To me, "paradice" is the way that someone who did not know how to spell the word (a child not yet exposed to the word, for instance) would spell it...as it sounds.

 

[Steely Dan]

What did the couple use to try to solve the cryptograms? How did they figure out what the symbols meant? Is it some kind of ancient alphabet or what?

Linky

Be patient. It takes a little time to download.

What I have always wondered is whether or not Zodiac was either a) poorly literate, or b) purposefully spelling words wrong. To me, "paradice" is the way that someone who did not know how to spell the word (a child not yet exposed to the word, for instance) would spell it...as it sounds.

According to statements to police by family and friends, prior to the publication of Zodiac's codes, Allen had possession of codes featuring identical symbols. Additionally, Allen was known to use the same unusual spelling and phrasing as Zodiac later used, such as spelling "Mery Xmass" instead of Merry Xmas and saying "trigger mech" instead of trigger mechanism. Allen would intentionally misspell words to be funny.


Linkage

 

[kline]

There has been a lot of speculation on that point.
He was capable of references and spelling that bespoke of someone educated or well read then in the same note he would throw in a childish
mis spelling.Or street level slang reference.
One wonders if this was calculated or the result of drugs or alchohol.
Frankly I have my own theory especially in regards to the 'Little List' note
the latter part where he describes in detail what he intends to do to his'Slaves' in 'Paradice'.
It has the cadence and flow of an obscene phone call.If you get my drift.

 

[MeoW333]

Allen has been cleared by both DNA and fingerprints as to not be the Zodiac.
Does anyone else think that the 2 victims who were stabbed in the park were done by a copycat and not the real zodiac? The Zodiac always shot people. The next killing after the couple in the park, i believe was the cabby in which the Zodiac sent a letter in including a piece of his shirt with the cabbie's blood on it.
5 out of 20 letters by the Zodiac are real.

The code in which it said "the most dangerous" i think was supposed to be a reference to "the most dangerous game" linked to the old movie, the Zodiac, in which a man hunted humans.

 

[MagicRose99]

The picture is graphic; A dead, bloody body. Dennis Kaufman says the picture came from a roll of film he found in his stepfather's belongings after he died.

Dennis Kaufman agreed to show CBS13 several photographs.

The pictures are difficult to look at, but Kaufman says if just one family finds answers about a loved one who was murdered, the last 9 years he's dedicated to this case will be worth it.

Last year, Dennis Kaufman began supplying the FBI with evidence attempting to prove his stepfather, Jack Tarrance, is the zodiac killer.

The evidence included envelopes for DNA testing and a hood resembling one worn by the zodiac in 1969 during an attack.

The FBI also took rolls of film but Kaufman did not hand over all the film. "When you give something to the FBI you never know what they are going to show or reveal to you," explained Kaufman.

http://cbs13.com/local/zodiac.dna.tests.2.993180.html

 

[defender123]

There is or was a whole write up on AMW.
I think Dennis did a really good job proving his step dad did this.
Even showed proof of one of the cars in old photos that his step dad owned.
I get the feeling they don't want the whole mystery solved.
Lots of people have big money in the mystery itself.
Movies, books etc.
I think they should give Dennis credit for putting it all together. IMO:clap:

 

[Steely Dan]

There is or was a whole write up on AMW.
I think Dennis did a really good job proving his step dad did this.
Even showed proof of one of the cars in old photos that his step dad owned.
I get the feeling they don't want the whole mystery solved.
Lots of people have big money in the mystery itself.
Movies, books etc.
I think they should give Dennis credit for putting it all together. IMO:clap:

Do you have a link for AMW?

Also, I think the FBI will get to it eventually because they want people to come forward if they knew the guy and had a missing family member or friend. I believe they have put it on the back burner and are working on other things until their workload slows down.

:cow:

 

[defender123]

http://www.amw.com/features/feature_story_detail.cfm?id=1542
On the 2nd suspect there was a huge story on AMW about 1 year ago put out by his step son.
He did some really nice work.
Not sure where the whole story went.

 

[defender123]

If this link is not ok please delete.
http://thezodiackiller.digitalzones.com/
The whole article is pretty compelling

 

[arielilane]

CBS13: S.F. Police Department Holds Up Zodiac Case

Jun 4, 2009 11:21 pm US/Pacific
CBS13 has uncovered a major roadblock in the FBI's investigation into the legendary Zodiac case. It's a lack of cooperation, not from a person, but from a police department.
http://cbs13.com/local/San.Francisco.police.2.1032296.html

http://cbs13.com/slideshows/zodia.killer.sacramento.20.805871.html

http://cbs13.com/zodiackiller

 

[Steely Dan]

CBS13: S.F. Police Department Holds Up Zodiac Case

Jun 4, 2009 11:21 pm US/Pacific
CBS13 has uncovered a major roadblock in the FBI's investigation into the legendary Zodiac case. It's a lack of cooperation, not from a person, but from a police department.
http://cbs13.com/local/San.Francisco.police.2.1032296.html

http://cbs13.com/slideshows/zodia.killer.sacramento.20.805871.html

http://cbs13.com/zodiackiller

That's freaky. Any reason anyone can think of for this?