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The Hunt for the Zodiac Killer on History Channel

grego

By grego
in The Tailgate

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grego

grego

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anybody watch this? it debuted last night at 10. 

 

every once in awhile, i'll get into old unsolved crimes. i love it. and a few years ago, i got into the zodiac killer mystery. it always goes like this- theres a suspect, you find out x, y, and z about them and you get convinced of their guilt. then you find out something that pretty much rules them out. i've read about arthur leigh allen, richard gaikowski, etc. nothing ever seems to come of any 'new' leads and the case is 50 years old at this point. 

 

but, in the first episode, they started looking into this guy, ross sullivan. he apparently was the prime suspect in a killing in riverside california several years before the zodiac murders started. similar modus operandi to one of the alleged zodiac cases, too- disabling a car, only to stumble on the scene when the woman tries to get the car going. 

 

 

it'll probably turn out to be a dead end, but, i'll admit, the resemblance is stunning. matches most of the physical description of the zodiac- a big guy (6'2", 250ish).

 

7942c7d530ee48a89a74c46eda587b3e_r.png

 

he worked at the library where the riverside victim had just left (and just around the corner from where the murder happened). he was said to be odd. he wasnt seen for a few days (maybe longer) then he showed up again. he was in the san fran area a few years later when those murders happened. he had mental issues, ended up in a mental institution and died in 77. 

 

of course, it's the first episode. you'd think they'd do a little build up, looking at other suspects. could be nothing. 

 

thoughts?

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AsburySkinsFan

AsburySkinsFan

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3 minutes ago, AlvinWaltonIsMyBoy said:

 Really interesting case, so I'm sure the show will be entertaining.  Just not sure how accurate it will be.

 

That’s the real problem with the History channel and NatGeo both, they’ve both opted for aliens and nutjob sensationalism that they have zero credibility anymore. I remember reading NatGeo as a kid...for the articles and thinking that they were truly an authority but I would hesitate handing my kids a NatGeo now for fear it is no better than the tv network. I don’t know if there is a wall between the two but the reputation is sullied.

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grego

grego

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33 minutes ago, skinsfan_1215 said:

Haven’t seen the show but the movie with Jake Gyllenhall was good.

 

 

iirc, there were alot of liberties taken with the story, kinda like JFK. its not quite historically accurate. but that happens. 

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grego

grego

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14 minutes ago, AlvinWaltonIsMyBoy said:

I love unsolved crimes.  However, I can't watch anything on the History of Aliens Channel. :ols:

 

If I recall correctly, the killer that the detectives thought did it was named Lee.  I'd have to look that up though.  Really interesting case, so I'm sure the show will be entertaining.  Just not sure how accurate it will be.

 

 

 

probably talking about arthur leigh (sometimes spelled 'lee', not sure why, but thats what ive read) allen. he was the number one suspect. same boots and same size as those found at one of the scenes, had a zodiac watch, think he had the military background they believe zodiac had, lived near the area, stuff like that.

 

The only named suspect was Arthur Leigh Allen, a local man who was linked through circumstantial evidence including the fact that he owned a typewriter of the same make as that used to write the letters and wore a Zodiac brand wris****ch.

Mr Allen died in 1992. DNA evidence appeared to rule him out as a suspect in 2002.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9267550/Former-police-officer-claims-to-have-solved-mystery-of-the-Zodiac-killer.html

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Lombardi's_kid_brother

Lombardi's_kid_brother

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This show is kind of ridiculous.

 

1. It's acting like it discovered angles on this case that have been part of Zodiac lore for at least 40 years.

 

2. Going from a police sketch is stupid. Who know who that drawing looks exactly like? My father in law in 1971. Also my uncle in 1970. And pretty much any man who was in ROTC or the military from 1965 to 1975. That was a standard look. (Actually, it looks exactly like Herbert Clutter from In Cold Blood, but he died in 1959). Seriously, look in any family album from the late 60s, early 70s. I guarantee you two men in it look like Zodiac. (Unless your family is not white, in which case, congratulations. You are not related to the Zodiac killer).

 

It's also stupid that the police sketch is from a group of drunk teenagers who witnessed a man fleeing from a murder scene from a good distance. That crime is only linked to Zodiac because of one of the letters after the fact. And the man in that sketch was supposed to be 5'9. The Lake Berryessa attacker was 5'11. Suddenly, the guy is 6'3"?

 

3. Here is my fundamental problem with the Zodiac case: We don't know if there is really a serial killer, and if we do, we don't know if he wrote the letters, and if he did, we don't know if the letters are BS. There are three cases that sort of fit an MO/pattern - lover's lane type attacks. However, it's different times of the day, different guns, and different approaches. Also, at one time, the guy is in a freaking costume.

 

Then you have the attack and murder of a male cab driver.

 

Then you have the carjacking and attempted kidnapping of a woman and her child.

 

Throwing in the Riverside murder gives a larger timeframe and a 4th MO.

 

4.  The show is doing the standard terrible History Channel overproduction.

 

 

Just for fun, is anyone like me in doubting that this is even a real serial crime?

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Lombardi's_kid_brother

Lombardi's_kid_brother

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The next big true crime even for me is Michelle McNamara's book on the East Area Rapist/Original Night Stalker/Golden State Killer.

 

If you ever want to fall down a rabbit hole dig into that case.

 

It's never talked about, but that guy is in Bundy/Gacy/Dahmer territory - except he was never caught and no one seems to have the first clue of how to even approach the case. I'm convinced that he's never discussed, because he started as a serial rapist before he got into murder and because he never had a good nickname.

 

1 minute ago, Momma There Goes That Man said:

I don’t know but Zodiac the movie took about 2.5 days for me to get thru. Man that thing dragged the **** on. It was on Netflix so I watched it recently and somehow it ended up feeling longer than a back to back viewing of Roots 

 

 

 

I hear that a lot about that one, but I think I could watch another two hours of that film.

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grego

grego

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16 minutes ago, Lombardi's_kid_brother said:

 

 

 

Just for fun, is anyone like me in doubting that this is even a real serial crime?

 

i think there are alot of fair questions there- the physical appearance description has varied. 

 

there are reasons the authorities believe at least 7 murders are related. part of it is related to a letter from the killer. 

 

On August 7, 1969, another letter was received at The San Francisco Examiner with the salutation "Dear Editor This is the Zodiac speaking." This was the first time the killer had used this name for identification. The letter was a response to Chief Stiltz's request for more details that would prove he had killed Faraday, Jensen and Ferrin. In it, the Zodiac included details about the murders which had not yet been released to the public, as well as a message to the police that when they cracked his code "they will have me."

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grego

grego

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1 minute ago, Momma There Goes That Man said:

No way that’s crazy. 

 

But also, with the computers and tech we have now, can we still not crack those ciphers that were sent 

 

they were looking into those last night. i kinda think at this point that it may be a diversion, or just something he made up. kind of like the beale cyphers

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beale_ciphers

 

There has been considerable debate over whether the remaining two ciphertexts are real or hoaxes. An early researcher, Carl Hammer of Sperry UNIVAC,[6] used supercomputers of the late 1960s to analyze the ciphers and found that while the ciphers were poorly encoded, the two undeciphered ones did not show the patterns one would expect of randomly chosen numbers and probably encoded an intelligible text.[7] Other questions remain about the authenticity of the pamphlet's account. In 1934, Dr. Clarence Williams, a researcher at the Library of Congress, said, "To me, the pamphlet story has all the earmarks of a fake . . . [There was] no evidence save the word of the unknown author of the pamphlet that he ever had the papers."

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Lombardi's_kid_brother

Lombardi's_kid_brother

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Is that the book where he claims that his dad is also the Black Dahlia killer? I feel like there are two books that link Zodiac and Black Dahlia among the 500 books in the "My dad was the Zodiac and/or Black Dahlia killer" genre.

 

By the way, has anyone seen the show about HH Holmes' great grandson (or something like that) trying to "prove" that Holmes was also Jack the Ripper? It's reallllllllly dumb. (I just looked it up and it's also on History. God that channel is just the worst).

 

The impression I have is that the unsolved cypher is probably total gibberish.

 

I should point out that I think at least two and maybe three of the crimes are related. I'm probably being overly dismissive. But the cab driver murder and especially the carjacking don't make any sense to me in the grand scheme of things.

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Kosher Ham

Kosher Ham

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1 minute ago, LadySkinsFan said:

Saw the HH Holmes show. So many of the so-called clues are pretty farfetched. Lots of blind alleys.

 

Ahh... I saw that also. 

Read the book about it. Good stuff. 

It's all a reach, but still entertaining. haha. 

 

As far as this show goes, I am sure that I will check it out eventually. 

I have read so much over the years about it that... I am checking out until something really new inspires me to pique my interest in it again. 

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grego

grego

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20 minutes ago, Lombardi's_kid_brother said:

Is that the book where he claims that his dad is also the Black Dahlia killer? I feel like there are two books that link Zodiac and Black Dahlia among the 500 books in the "My dad was the Zodiac and/or Black Dahlia killer" genre.

 

 

thats the one. i think he was interviewed on the sports junkies a couple of years ago. i was interested at first, then he started going on and on and it got pretty far fetched. he was linking his dad to just about every unsolved murder ever. 

 

Quote

I should point out that I think at least two and maybe three of the crimes are related. I'm probably being overly dismissive. But the cab driver murder and especially the carjacking don't make any sense to me in the grand scheme of things.

 

the cab murder was linked to zodiac because police got a letter from a person claiming to be zodiac with blood soaked fragments of the driver- paul stines- shirt. 

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Sacks 'n' Stuff

Sacks 'n' Stuff

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Not exactly on topic but doesn't deserve it's own thread. One time in my random nomadic wikipedia link clicking, I came across the story of Kaspar Hauser

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaspar_Hauser

 

Kinda interesting to me. He was pretty clearly some sociopath, con-artist but nobody is really sure where he came from or who he really was.

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