Outside WS, people are asking " Could this be the Zodiac Killer"?
Thoughts? I don't think the dates line up with his age, do they?
The reason why so many people (inside law enforcement and outside of it) have argued for
decades - long before DNA ever connected them - that the Visalia Ransacker, East Area Rapist and Original Night Stalker were the same individual, was that Jospeh James DeAngelo Jr
could not stop himself acting in a certain way when carrying out his crimes.
We are talking well over 200 crimes, and repeatedly the same traits kept coming up. Prowling, removing screens off windows or prying sliding doors. Leaving multiple pre-planned escape routes for himself. Using weapons stolen from one attack to attack victims in another attack. Phoning victims both before and after assaulting them. Stealing coins, blue chip stamps and other items of very little value, while leaving very expensive items and large amounts of cash untouched. Stealing photographs of the females involved, or one ear-ring from a pair (just to inflict emotional damage)
Breaking into houses before attacking to learn the victims habits, names, where they slept in the house.
Wearing size 9 tennis shoes to assist with his ability to scale fences and use canals to travel undetected through upper-class neighborhoods at night.
Always attempting to flee when things didn't go according to plan, but never hesitating to shoot when cornered.
Leaving tiny scratch marks in the same spot on window screens (purportedly so he could work out if there was a dog in the house, who woud hear a noise that would go unnoticed by any people inside)
Talking to imaginary accomplices or pretending to use the phone in the residence yet when the police tried to trace the calls he placed, no calls had been made.
Using ligatures (torn towels and shoe-laces) with decorative knots that were tied so tightly they cut off circulation to the victims hands. Even when he was murdering he would remove the ligatures after killing the victims, but he was simply unable to stop using them as they were such a massive part of the thrill for him.
I could go on and on but suffice to say, a recent TV series on the case stated that there were
FIFTY similarities in MO between EAR and the VR. Unique idiosyncrasies that you might find 3-4 of in any two random criminals, but to have 50 line up perfectly in one criminal who began raping very soon after another suddenly stopped committing burglaries...
Don't get me wrong, every single day for the past 7 years or so - up until a couple of days ago - I have seen many people argue that the VR and EAR were not linked, based largely on one witness description of a person who was identified years ago and was ruled out as not being the VR.
But for so many of us, we always
KNEW the three series of crimes were linked.
The Zodiac on the other hand is some bumbling idiot who shot a taxi driver and cut some of his shirt off and bragged about it like he'd committed the crime of the century... and wrote lots of letters that were mostly gibberish.
Joseph James DeAngelo Jr was a prolific burglar, rapist and murderer. But in every single case he left telling clues because he had a
compulsion he could not control that forced him to act in a certain way when carrying out his crimes. People are now trying to link him to all kinds of crimes, all across the country (and even in Australia)
But all this talk of him being Zodiac, Mr Cruel (I have even seen people suggest he might be the LISK!!) is just nonsense.
