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Post by Admin Horan on May 14, 2015 19:37:19 GMT -6
There are two parts to the Great Zodiac Killer Hoax—the first part is the myth Robert Graysmith perpetuated in his 1986 book, ZODIAC. The second part is the original hoax involving the creation of a series of letters and cryptograms mailed to newspapers in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1969. The actual files of the various law enforcement agencies who investigated the murders of Cheri Jo Bates, David Faraday, Betty Lou Jensen, Darlene Ferrin, Cecilia Ann Shepard, and Paul Stine prove that the series of taunting letters, threats, and mysterious cryptograms to the San Francisco Chronicle and other newspapers could NOT have been written by the actual murderer(s). By following the trail of lies in Robert Graysmith's bestselling 1986 book, ZODIAC, it is possible to zero in on the one person who could have created such a hoax. And that person turns out to have handprinting identical the "Zodiac Killer" letters. Those files have become available for us to read. Reading those files proves that, in fact, Robert Graysmith lied about the evidence, lied about the witness statements, lied about the suspects, lied about the frame around Allen—and lied about the authenticity of the "Zodiac Killer" letters. The Great Zodiac Killer Hoax of 1986 by Thomas Henry Horan exposes Graysmith's hoax of a book chapter by chapter, fact by fact—and reveals evidence that indicates Robert Graysmith himself wrote several of the Zodiac Killer letters. The final, complete edition of The Great Zodiac Killer Hoax of 1969 by Thomas Henry Horan is available on Amazon.com now! (If you already purchased a copy of the first edition, you do not have to pay for the 2nd edition. Simply download the new, updated version onto your Kindle or Kindle app.) www.amazon.com/Great-Zodiac-Killer-Hoax-1969-ebook/dp/B008NCUCPU
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Post by Scott1234 on Sept 23, 2015 7:14:45 GMT -6
While reading Graysmiths book it immediately stuck out that he was happy to bend facts to fit his thory rather than the other way around. He discarded a number of suspects because handwriting or fingerprinting didn't match but then expalined this away when discussing Allen, cement on finger tips or use of projector to disguise writing. Even setting aside the idea that it was all a hoax (not that i am doing this), the investigation and theory by Graysmith was very flawed and could fairly easily be pulled apart.
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Post by dt2016 on Jul 8, 2016 23:56:26 GMT -6
Mr. Horan, Downloaded both books and to say the least an interesting read. Lived in the Bay Area at the time and followed the case closely. The TV news reporters sure thought he was out there as did everyone I knew. Question: Are there any photos of the Land brothers, Powers, Big Red, etc.? The only pics of Snook I've seen are by the Ghia and one side view in I guess his lab. Don't know why if the authorities know who the killers were they haven't done more to close these cases but I'm sure $ are involved.
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Post by Admin Horan on Jul 9, 2016 8:20:25 GMT -6
DT: Thanks for joining! I will round up photos of Ray Land. The one good photo I have of Dennis Land I don't have legal rights to publish. It's a dead ringer for the police sketch of the man peeping at girls around Lake Berryessa that day. Ray Land was a dead ringer for Arthur Leigh Allen, bizarrely enough. I also have a picture of Snook with his two sons. When I find the pics I will probably move this thread.
So far as pursuing the case against Dennis Land, there were two problems. One, it would mean cops testifying against each other, and contradicting each other on the witness stand. DA's hate that. Two, The Land brothers and Hal Snook were close friends of several other creepy cops suspected of murder, including Phil Stewart. Napa has always been notoriously corrupt. Between 1945 and 2000, they had accumulated more than 30 "unsolved" murders, and quite a few very suspicious "convictions" in other murders. That's a shocking number for a little farm town of less than 50,000 people (it's grown rapidly in the last few years.)
The reason the murders in Vallejo weren't "solved" is pointed out in the letters themselves—police corruption.
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Post by Admin Horan on Jul 10, 2016 15:38:50 GMT -6
DT: I swear on Voigt's eyes I had one more photo of Ray Land from circa 1969 in his uniform, after he'd gained a few pounds and his face got rounder. In that photo, he looks almost exactly like Allen. This is a photo of him when he was younger and thinner. I also have a photo somewhere of Snook with his two sons, in which he looks a lot less "grandfatherly" and a little more like a Special Forces badass. (Which he had been in WWII.)Then I'll post a new thread with those pics. Thanks for your patience!
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Post by dt2016 on Jul 15, 2016 21:47:09 GMT -6
Thanks for posting, he looks like a "regular guy" in that one. You think leaks would have trickled out over the years but Smith Jr. had everyone looking in a complete opposite (planned?) direction I guess.
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Post by Admin Horan on Jul 19, 2016 18:38:40 GMT -6
DT: Leaks? People screamed their heads off for years, but nobody paid any attention. Ray Land does sort of seem to have been a relatively "normal" guy for a cop, but his brother Dennis was a notorious creep who had notorious creeps for best buddies. In all fairness, Dennis Land apparently had a legitimate reason (in addition to a deep-end Seventh Day Adventist mother) for not, um, "liking" girls. But his choice of friends made it all worse. Lonergan had information suggesting—not proving, only suggesting—that Ray may have been harassing or stalking Cecelia Ann Shepard. Ray had married a girl from the same college, PUC, a Seventh Day Adventist college, who graduated a couple of years before Cecelia transferred there. The first two LE officers to arrive at the scene were Ray and Dennis.
I'll say it again—if ANYBODY has ANY information about Hal Snook and the Boy Scouts or Explorer Scouts, THAT might be priceless.
Thanks for your comment!
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Post by ElderPop on Nov 7, 2016 0:24:48 GMT -6
I just finished this book. Great work!
I have a few questions... Do we know anything more about the history of Kieth Power? You say he spent the remainder of his life trying in vain to get a job with the LA Times. Is he still with us? Is there a possibility he could finally come clean regarding his involvement? Have you found any new evidence regarding his history and relationships with individuals in SFPD or Nappa PD?
You have suggested the past couple of years that you may have amendments to you theory regarding Snook's motive (though you have been understandably coy about the details)... How well does this new evidence fit in with your current theories on POWER's motive? Do you now believe he likely knew about Snook's more (supposedly) insidious habits and relationships? Or do you think Power's sole motive was capitalizing on the murders to advance his career and help his paper?
The other individuals that stood out to me were Villareal and Hoffman. The fact they place themselves at the scene of the crime at the time of the murder is rather damning. Were they ever implicated or indited for corruption? I know many members of the Vallejo PD were... Based on the evidence, there is at least a decent likelihood that they were corrupt and covering up for Ott. Wouldn't that potentially give them a motive to write the letters? Perhaps they realized the chief of police was enamored with the serial killer phenomenon (as you suggest, as does the history of his interviews with the paper and his meeting with his department to discuss the phenomena prior to the original letters,) and wrote the letters to get the heat off of their informant... did they know the personality of their Chief and how to best manipulate him?
You do have good evidence showing Snook as the likely writer of the original letters. The handwriting samples you share are convincing, though I am not a hand printing expert so I take my own analysis on that with a grain of salt. One aspect of the letters I find interesting, though, are the idiosyncratic misspellings that match Hoffman's police reports. You paint Snook as a rather talented and intelligent detective. If Snook wrote the letters, wouldn't he likely realize copying these same type of misspellings from Hoffman's report would point to the letter writer basing his letters off of said reports? Perhaps he didn't. Did Snook have idiosyncratic misspellings of his own in the primary sources from him you have? Maybe he also wasn't good at spelling and took Hoffman's spellings on face value.
Could Snook have wanted the cops to figure out the letters were based on the report? Maybe that would fit with your original theory of Snook's motive.
If we were to work off of the premise that the "zodiac" letter writer did not realize these were misspellings... that would seem to make Hoffman himself seem like an even more likely suspect. Those types of misspellings are rare and you have to think the majority of the adult population could point them out easily. How possible would it be that Hoffman himself was the culprit? I know you say that the handwriting does not match. Is there any other evidence that would eliminate him as a suspect? I feel there are several circumstantial pieces that point to his involvement:
1) The matching idiosyncratic misspellings. 2) Access to the reports the letters are based on (since he wrote them.) 3) His connection to Kieth Power. 4) He and Vallereal appearing to protect Ott (evidenced by the apparent frame job.) Protecting Ott could be the motive. Perhaps they got a cut of Ott's profits to look the other way. Maybe they realized Ott could take them down with him since they were apparently... 5) placing themselves at the scene of one of the murders at the time of the murders.
What do you think? You certainly do know the case much better than myself, these were just kind of how the pieces fell in my mind when I read your narrative. Does the new evidence you've been holding on to to this point regarding Snook strengthen the theory of him as the perpetrator?
I know this is a lot. Thanks for your time and all your hard work! Keep digging!
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Post by ElderPop on Nov 7, 2016 0:33:42 GMT -6
Another point that may strengthen the case for Hoffman (or at least someone writing the letters to take the heat off of Ott:)
Didn't you say that the first letters came out only a couple of weeks after the jailhouse confession? That note you posted on another thread in this blog, I felt, is one of the strongest pieces of evidence implicating Ott in the murders and "Zodiac" being a hoax. What was that source, exactly? A letter from one of the officers? Who was that note to and when was it written?
One more question: I heard you say on a podcast that perhaps that Eddie Edwards fellow was a suspect in the Lake Vallejo stabbings... Any traction on this lead at all? Are the land brothers still the most likely suspects on that case? Has their been any traction on their potential connection with the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker slaying?
Again, thanks for your time. Look forward to hearing back from you.
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Post by ElderPop on Nov 7, 2016 1:33:57 GMT -6
One final thing of note: In responding to my request about any possible further information that may implicate Snook as the writer, note I am aware of his connections to tad-tad cults, bomb making, and coding (all strong pieces of evidence that point his way.)
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Post by Admin Horan on Nov 8, 2016 16:43:22 GMT -6
But the funny thing is, all that makes him look like the Zodiac KILLER. Plus the fact he was a dead ringer for the Stine composite sketch.
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Post by ElderPop on Nov 10, 2016 2:29:41 GMT -6
But the funny thing is, all that makes him look like the Zodiac KILLER. Plus the fact he was a dead ringer for the Stine composite sketch. Woah! What? Are you referring to Snook? Are you starting to think that "Zodiac" wasn't a hoax after all, and that it was Snook (maybe with the help of the Land bros.?)
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Post by ElderPop on Nov 10, 2016 2:34:14 GMT -6
What about the stuff I brought up earlier concerning Hoffman? Power? Could you clarify a bit on Snook as well? Any new news concerning either the Lands or Edwards and the Napa stabbings?
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Post by Admin Horan on Nov 11, 2016 11:58:12 GMT -6
Pop:
Let me try and summarize: 1. If Hoffman had shot Darlene, then why incriminate himself? 2. If "Zodiac" was an attempt to frame Hoffman, then WTF do Stine and Berryessa have to do with that? 3. Is it POSSIBLE the letters were some part of some bizarre thrill kill club, or whatever? Sure. Can I find one single solitary shred of EVIDENCE to back that up? No. But I'm still digging.
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Post by ElderPop on Nov 13, 2016 3:34:51 GMT -6
Thank you for your time, Dr. Hoffman.
First, a quick response to your responses:
1) "If Hoffman had shot Darlene, why incriminate himself?" My apologies, I didn't mean to imply that Hoffman had shot Darlene, but he does place himself at the scene of the crime at the time we know the murders took place, right? How can we explain that? Is it possible V and H were mistaken and were there sometime earlier in the night, before the murders? If that is an unlikely scenario, could they have possibly witnessed the murder but were protecting the murderer?
2) I'm was not necessarily saying that the original letters were written to frame Hoffman, I was simply attempting to outline all the possible scenarios that could explain the matching idiosyncrasies in misspellings between Hoffman's reports and the original letters... but if we were to work under the assumption that the original letters were written to do exactly that (noted I don't think this is the most likely scenario) then couldn't the lake stabbing still be the work of a copycat and the evidence and letters from the Stine shooting be the work of rouge members of The Chronicle?
3) Have you spoken to people who knew the characters involved who imply there could be some greater connection between Snook, the Lands, and Smith Jr?
I have a few lingering questions remaining:
!) What is your current working motive for the letters?
2) You believe that the prints from the driver's side door of Stine's cab will likely match the perp who took Stine's time sheet. You seem to strongly believe that person is Power. Do we have a copy of Power's prints on record? If you could match those prints to Power, you have your smoking gun, right?
3) Speaking of Power, is he still living?
4) Is there any evidence at all that would imply there being any relationship between Power and Snook or Hoffman, outside of dating his articles on the murders matching Hoffman and Snook's reports (implying he could have only gotten the info he published from said reports?)
5) What is the source of the letter you have on this website detailing the jailhouse confession of Ott's associates? Is the writer of the letter a police officer? Was he the one who heard this confession firsthand? Who was the letter sent to? When was it written?
6) Are the Land Brothers still suspected in the lake stabbings? Is there any evidence that would implicate Eddie Edwards? Are the Lands still suspected in the hitchhiking slayings?
As always, thank you for your time, and I look forward to hearing back from you.
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