Zodiac Killer

[snooptroop88]

There is a podcast series called The Consult: Real FBI Profilers. In a five part series 80 through 84, three retired profilers get together with researcher Michael Butterfield and discuss the Zodiac killer case, starting with the incidents and then the pyschological profile. For me, the real value is listening to one of the retired profilers named Robert "Bob" Drew talk about who the Zodiac was from a profile perspective. This guy is very sound IMO. Bob describes some of his thoughts on what the Zodiac killer was like. This is a synopis of what Bob said about the Zodiac: had deep rooted major grievances with life being unfair from a very young age, likely caused through vicitmization as a child through some type of abuse, humilated by this, had a resentment towards authority, was fairly intelligent but not a genius, high school education but not much past that, maybe some technical training or some minor post high school education, was an under achiever professionally because of personality problems and resentment towards authority (does not like being directed), very possible he had a short but mundane term in the military, if so, briefly served as a non confrontational under performer, had strong feelings of exclusion and inadequacy, regularly ignored by others socially and romantically, felt his intellect was very underappreciated, was lonely, angry, vengeful, quiet, brooding, not interested in activities with others unless he was in a superior role, used arrogance to mask insecurities but was non confrontational and non threatening to others in daily life, likely afraid of confrontation. Likely to have been bullied physically in school on a regular basis, resents others success in the financial, social, romantic realms. Believes that life has unfairly excluded him from being able to achieve success, childhood trauma has led him to such a feeling of inadequacy that he has compensated for it with the Zodiac persona. Had "compensatory" interests in comic books and movies where there was an underdog character. First three crimes represent his failures with romantic relationships, as he was awkward and timid with females, ignored by them. Paul Stine murder in SF, picked an upper class socio-economic neighborhood due to resentment for being a financial under achiever, as a way to give them fear, did the bus bomb threat to scare children since he was scared as a child and no one did anything to protect him.

All in all, it makes a lot of sense and seems very possible. Obviously, it is all an estimation based on the training and experience of profilers and could be wrong but the theory is sound. May not help us get to the real suspect but who knows.

REALLY digging this big time.

Zodiac: had deep rooted major grievances with life being unfair from a very young age, likely caused through vicitmization as a child through some type of abuse, humilated by this, had a resentment towards authority, Mostly agreed, not sure on the abuse, but he witnessed something that made him aware of gross injustice. He has a strong sense of victimization. Has zero respect for authority, jmo.

...was fairly intelligent but not a genius, high school education but not much past that, maybe some technical training or some minor post high school education, was an under achiever professionally...very possible he had a short but mundane term in the military, Mostly agreed, especially on the mundane military career. But disagree on the schooling aspect, think his parents were hard workers and pretty successful, and he went to a good university in California and probably ultimately went into an academic position where he had enough autonomy and flexibility to mask himself pretty well

...strong feelings of exclusion and inadequacy, regularly ignored by others socially and romantically, felt his intellect was very underappreciated, was lonely, angry, vengeful, quiet, brooding, not interested in activities with others unless he was in a superior role, used arrogance to mask insecurities but was non confrontational and non threatening to others in daily life... Mostly agreed, jmo thanks to what was a financially successful family situation, he likely WAS in a superior role a lot of the time. And I do think he was married, but thinks he should have "done better" in that regard. So he's frustrated.

Likely to have been bullied physically in school on a regular basis I doubt it, but jmo.

...resents others success in the financial, social, romantic realms. Believes that life has unfairly excluded him from being able to achieve success, childhood trauma has led him to such a feeling of inadequacy that he has compensated for it with the Zodiac persona. He feels life dealt him bad cards for sure, but think he was financially secure and raised a family.

Had "compensatory" interests in comic books and movies where there was an underdog character... He's into theater/singing/music, that's my guess. And the disguises-- I bet that's actually true.

Paul Stine murder in SF, picked an upper class socio-economic neighborhood due to resentment for being a financial under achiever, as a way to give them fear, did the bus bomb threat to scare children since he was scared as a child and no one did anything to protect him. He's probably from a quite comfortable financial situation himself but resents many of his peers greatly and views himself as "exceptional" and an anti-hero of sorts. The threat he made on the bomb never materialized
-- that we know of. But it may have been designed to mask crimes we have no idea as of yet that he committed.

I know a lot of people on these different threads will talk about evil with these perps, and they're right. But I don't see that word thrown around too much with Zodiac. He's got everyone's head into the ciphers and trying to pick apart his letters, myself included. But Zodiac made a puzzle game out of his senseless, brutal murders. He has gotten away with doing so for decades. I believe he himself had a very comfortable life as he did it. He's like an "anti-" Andy Warhol. Whereas Warhol sought to harness culture to celebrate the mundane, Zodiac sought (jmo) to trivialize his brutal, horrifying acts by making them into some kind of horrifying Seek-and-Find puzzle. If ever there was a case where a brain should be in a bottle on some specialist's shelf-- it's him.

Just pure evil.

 

[minazoe]

Okay well I always think of him as an incel type or sexually frustrated in some way. possibly asexual with a particular hatred of heterosexuals, couples and children. hatred of social construct and cops. maybe someone who was rejected by the military , maybe thrown out. Someone who is inadequate at life but a diabolical weirdo.

 

[bdsjr]

One thing is for certain, he had a fascination with games, puzzles, and comic books. I really think he saw himself as all of the Batman adversaries rolled into one. Like an All-star of sorts. I'll bet when he was 8 to 12 years old, give or take, he spent every waking moment in a comic book reading about evil characters. Some where in there, he identified with someone like the Riddler whose whole function was to feed his own ego on how much more "clever" he was then the Police. Interestingly enough, the comic book craze had gotten out of hand by the 1950's and according to research, there was tremendous filth and violence getting into the hands of young minds. So much so, that communities such as Vallejo were doing comic book roundups to destroy the "bad stuff", and there were senate hearings on just how bad everything had gotten with the violence and smut comic books. I won't say that stuff turned him into a serial killer but it had to be food for his soul so to speak. I will add, that my instincts tell me that he was likely into gambling and probably went to Nevada on a regular basis, or to the two local horse tracks, one in Albany, Alameda County CA, the other in Belmont, San Mateo County, CA. I think the art of gambling whereby some skill had to be utilized, like cards and horse research, most likely appealed to him.

 

[bdsjr]

Okay well I always think of him as an incel type or sexually frustrated in some way. possibly asexual with a particular hatred of heterosexuals, couples and children. hatred of social construct and cops. maybe someone who was rejected by the military , maybe thrown out. Someone who is inadequate at life but a diabolical weirdo.

Could be. I do think the sexual frustration is right on, and it was likely based on repeat rejection by the opposite sex. May be he was looked at as inadequate by females both physically and socially, and so he developed an outcast and inadequacy complex early on in life. He might have even had a little sweetheart who broke his heart in school, running off with another guy who was "better" then him. I think it's very likely that he did later get his "rocks off" through prostitution which if so, would have likely fed his negative feelings for females. It also could be that he had some sort of dysfunctional relationship with his mother like a lot of other serial killers. I will say that, he was no doubt a "diabolical weirdo" but it is now very clear to me that he held all of that in check from an outward appearance. I think on the inside, he had a sexual lust for the act of killing just like later on we see with Dennis Rader. He was shaking with excitiement right before he plunged the knife into the backs of Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard. I am of the belief that the Zodiac killer is not one of the main named suspects because he blended into soceity, being almost invisible to anyone other than his immediately family members and maybe a few others where he worked.