The Zodiac killer was one guy, I believe. I've looked at all official reports, multiple times. He was 5'8' to 6'0", stocky build, and was 30 or younger: this was directly from the two victims who saw and/or heard him from just a couple of feet away. The reports of 40's in a single incident happened from witnesses who were not close up. However, out of all of the sightings in confirmed offenses, one thing never changed: stocky build. That's interesting because in 1969, overweight and obesity rates were significantly lower for younger people indicating this man was a little more distinct from his contemporaries. There's no way to prove it was more than one guy and it is not logical based on what we know about the crimes and the confirmed Zodiac communication.
Who do you think the Zodiac Killer actually is?
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A newer theory suggests Gary Francis Poste was the Zodiac, but the FBI isn't sold on the idea yet. Everyone is waiting for a DNA match through a family tree. This could happen if one of his relatives takes a home DNA test and the results point back to someone living in the Bay Area in 1969.
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Did he have a criminal record? I would love to know that if he is a potential candidate
From what I saw he had an arrest for Domestic violence. He also had a car accident when he was 20 that caused some damage to his brain. He was a member of the air force and was stationed in Greenland. Since the "Code breakers" announced him as a suspect in 2021 I would assume that DNA testing did not match him.
3 months ago it came out that an Autistic man solved the cipher and was able to figure out who it was. Apparently a detective in Los Angeles and a former FBI agent looked at this findings and said they agreed he solved it. The man was apparently the person who killed the black Dahlia as well and was the main suspect. He left Los Angeles and changed his name. settling into the bay area and then moved on to Chicago.
Zodiac and Black Dahlia killer may have been same man, amateur codebreaking whiz claims: ‘Irrefutable’
Alex Baber used AI and an exhaustive investigation through public records to narrow down his suspect
nypost.com
Timeline is the most critical thing in considering a suspect in this case. Establishing who was in the area of the known crimes on or about the dates of their occurrence is where the real homework is done. What do we really know about these recently named suspect's timelines? I am not sold in anyway on anyone ever publicly named as a suspect and won't even consider someone unless I see timeline info that puts them the Solano-Napa County areas starting in late 1968. I will also add something: most named suspects were arrested at some point, with fingerprints in the FBI's criminal file. If a suspect was ever arrested, it is unlikely he's the Zodiac. There are comparable prints on file and there has been since 1969. Hundreds if not thousands have been compared. Nothing has ever matched. Historic military and federal government employment/background prints were different. They are held in a civil file and still may be warehoused somewhere out in West Virginia, some of which may not be digitally searchable even today. My conclusion: The Zodiac killer was one in a hundred million. He had some luck yes, but the reason he got away with it was because he was invisible in the community where he lived. He was the low key, patriotic, dutiful son, brother, husband, the guy next door who fixed your mower or the kid's bike. The thrill for him was knowing that he was the most infamous criminal in history while still the most anonymous invisible guy in town. The world was looking for a monster but he never leaked that image to anyone. No one suspected a thing and that is the reason we are still talking about something from almost 6 decades ago.
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Largely agreed but think he-- either individually or as one of multiple perps-- may have had minor offenses on his record. From what I can see, prints were collected for the FBI database in that timeframe for felonies and "most" misdemeanors. Also, if he had committed some offense when he was a minor, I don't know what the situation with the prints would be in such a case.
Then there's his claim about not having left prints at the scenes, can't be certain that was a bluff. And he may have taken measures to actually alter this own prints in a meaningful way if he moved from a point where he'd had some small-time booking... into a period where he would actually kill. Here's something very strange, when I searched this, I'm seeing that...there's a trick criminals might use to distort their own prints, the "Z" trick. With the z-pattern cut, they can scar and distort the natural fingerprint and play with and manipulate the actual pattern of the print.. Isn't it interesting it's called the Z trick? Considering Zodiac sometimes signed with that "Z." Zodiac knew about the airline glue trick. Maybe another of his deceptions was to use a different trick-- not the airline glue after all-- to mask the prints. If so, that's quite a bag of tricks, but considering he's escaped not only capture, but even detection to this point... I'd say it had to be a pretty extensive and sophisticated bag of tricks.
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Oh no….Zodiac and Black Dahlia killer may have been same man, amateur codebreaking whiz claims: ‘Irrefutable’
Alex Baber used AI and an exhaustive investigation through public records to narrow down his suspect
That's very interesting. I also believe he had a big bag of tricks. Probably had his head buried in the detective magazine smut from that era. I think this guy was playing all of this out in his mind when he was a teenage boy, over and over until one day, it was time to turn fantasy into reality.
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Had been thinking a bit more on the whole thing with Cheri Bates and "time for you to die." Have always thought that was very in tune with his persona and was the type of thing I'd expect him to say, so I think that was Zodiac that murdered Cheri Bates. So there was a watch left at the crime scene, right? And "time for you to die." So there are 12 numbers on a wristwatch, the 1 to 12, that corresponds to the 12 houses of the Zodiac. Obviously speculation, but the whole "Zodiac" thing might be tied to this idea that he ends time for the victim.
The hands will go around on the watch twice in a day. The sign of twins in Zodiac is Gemini. He may have been a Gemini and/or he may have had a partner, two killers bonded together. It could also be a psycho planning a dual series of almost spree-like murders.
Don't think the "RH" sign off on the Riverside poem were his initials. I think that stands for "Ramona High" where Cheri had gone to school, however, had he written those actual words, the Ramona High, it would have left no question the poem was in reference to Cheri Bates. Zodiac likes to keep things cryptic, so I think that's him. And I think the watches are something to watch for with Zodiac. But jmo, and it's pure speculation.
The hands will go around on the watch twice in a day. The sign of twins in Zodiac is Gemini. He may have been a Gemini and/or he may have had a partner, two killers bonded together. It could also be a psycho planning a dual series of almost spree-like murders.
Don't think the "RH" sign off on the Riverside poem were his initials. I think that stands for "Ramona High" where Cheri had gone to school, however, had he written those actual words, the Ramona High, it would have left no question the poem was in reference to Cheri Bates. Zodiac likes to keep things cryptic, so I think that's him. And I think the watches are something to watch for with Zodiac. But jmo, and it's pure speculation.
"Baber took the riddle sent by the Zodiac killer to taunt California police after his five murders across 1968 and 1969 — in which he wrote “My name is” followed by 13 mysterious symbols — and asked an AI program to compile a list of 13-letter names.
That returned 71 million possibilities, and Baber — who owns Cold Case Consultants of America — pored through witness accounts and known details about the killer, while cross-checking them against census and public records.
He was able to narrow that enormous list down to 185, then again to 14, and finally landed on a single name: Marvin Merrill, an alias assumed by Marvin Margolis after he was investigated for the 1947 Black Dahlia murder.
Margolis was about 21 years old when he lived in Los Angeles with Elizabeth Short, the 22-year-old aspiring actress who would become known as the “Black Dahlia” after her body was found mutilated in an abandoned lot in 1947.
Margolis’ possible connections to the Zodiac killings became downright eerie once Baber uncovered newspaper accounts from the Dahlia killing describing a man frantically driving around Compton motels looking for a room with a bathtub the night before the murders.
One of the lodgings was called the “Zodiac Motel” at the time.
“That was the key to where she was murdered as well as his future moniker,” Baber told the LA Times.
The circumstantial evidence continued when Baber contacted Margolis’ son — who showed him a Japanese bayonet his father brought back from WWII that matched one of Zodiac’s possible murder weapons, and was even branded with a symbol that matched one from Zodiac’s famous code, the Daily Mail reported.
And even more chilling was a drawing Margolis made just a year before his 1993 death in Santa Barbara titled “Elizabeth,” which depicted a naked woman from the waist up with markings similar to Short’s stab wounds, Baber explained.
The word “Zodiac” even appeared to be written beneath dark shading.
“It’s irrefutable,” Baber said.
That returned 71 million possibilities, and Baber — who owns Cold Case Consultants of America — pored through witness accounts and known details about the killer, while cross-checking them against census and public records.
He was able to narrow that enormous list down to 185, then again to 14, and finally landed on a single name: Marvin Merrill, an alias assumed by Marvin Margolis after he was investigated for the 1947 Black Dahlia murder.
Margolis was about 21 years old when he lived in Los Angeles with Elizabeth Short, the 22-year-old aspiring actress who would become known as the “Black Dahlia” after her body was found mutilated in an abandoned lot in 1947.
Margolis’ possible connections to the Zodiac killings became downright eerie once Baber uncovered newspaper accounts from the Dahlia killing describing a man frantically driving around Compton motels looking for a room with a bathtub the night before the murders.
One of the lodgings was called the “Zodiac Motel” at the time.
“That was the key to where she was murdered as well as his future moniker,” Baber told the LA Times.
The circumstantial evidence continued when Baber contacted Margolis’ son — who showed him a Japanese bayonet his father brought back from WWII that matched one of Zodiac’s possible murder weapons, and was even branded with a symbol that matched one from Zodiac’s famous code, the Daily Mail reported.
And even more chilling was a drawing Margolis made just a year before his 1993 death in Santa Barbara titled “Elizabeth,” which depicted a naked woman from the waist up with markings similar to Short’s stab wounds, Baber explained.
The word “Zodiac” even appeared to be written beneath dark shading.
“It’s irrefutable,” Baber said.
RSBM.
The FBI continues to say the case is open and unsolved, and their silence strongly suggests that nothing of substance has been found. There is still no verified dna evidence tying anyone to the Zodiac. No agency , not the FBI, not SFPD, has confirmed the existence of a usable dna sample, nor any completed tests comparing it to Poste, Margolis, or anyone else.
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