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Post by Admin Horan on Aug 16, 2014 11:13:21 GMT -6
Kaiser:
Well, here's our dilemma. Voigt and Butterfield are outright frauds. Morf, at least, is honest, and he shares everything he and his readers find. But there are getting to be more and more people going on those websites and asking the same questions I've been asking. I guess they're going to have ban more and more people from their websites.
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smithy
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Post by smithy on Sept 10, 2014 11:43:50 GMT -6
Smithy: "He" went to aaaaaaallllll the trouble of making himself a "Zodiac" costume, creating a custom cipher, making himself a homemade bolo knife, etc, AND FORGOT TO PACK ONE OF HIS TRADEMARK BLUE FELT TIP PENS? ......wait a sec. They printed "..and btw, would-be forgers and copycats, he writes in blue felt tip pen" in the newspapers, before the Lake Berryessa attack? No, I don't think so. Point. I still think it was the letter writer who grabbed that door handle in his left hand and leant out using his right to pen that Ghia, mark you. And you can quote me on the radio too, if you like. Just as long as you don't say I think it was (necessarily - or irrevocably proven to be) Mr Hal Snook. Say, while you're enjoying some time away from this site of yours on less static media, are you reading or referring to: scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4076&context=jclc BTW? Or this? www.documentexperts.net/pdf/disguisedwritings.pdf (the bit about Ed Alford - that #15).... Or indeed this? Edwin F. Alford, Jr., Crime Laboratory, Post Office Department, Washington, D.C. 1.Ibid. 22:216-21, Jan. 1977. Changing slant: Is it the only change? Regent, James ....or my new favourite (yes, that's the way I spell it): Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology and Police Science. 43:685-9, Jan.-Feb. 1953. Disguised handwriting. Harris, John J. I've printed out all the letters and I'm having a lot of fun with them. I'm now my own QDE. Who'd have thunk?
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Post by Admin Horan on Sept 11, 2014 7:55:14 GMT -6
Whether you really believed it or not, there was one post of yours on my old blog where you "agreed" the handwriting was Snooks, and that he wrote on the car door. Morf thought that was my comment. So I just pointed out I was NOT claiming any of that.
If he tried to "disguise" his handprinting, then why did "go back" to his "natural" handprinting in the Exorcist letter?
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smithy
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Post by smithy on Sept 12, 2014 9:32:45 GMT -6
Mr H - yes indeedy. I haven't changed my mind, either. I surely do wish there was more of Mr Snook's writing in the public domain though. (Have I said that? I think I have.) That way I could say "irrovecably" and "proven" - and I ain't dared say that quite yet.
Say, since you don't agree about the letter writer and the door - do you reckon that your copycat writer picked that colon style up by looking at the then-unpublished letter of August 4th? That he had access to it? You haven't said. Or do you really think that it's the Mama and Papa, Grandmother and Grandfather of all coincidences? An example of presience like Morgan Robertson writing "Futility"? I wonders.
Anyway.
Re: "If he tried to "disguise" his handwriting..." well he did try to "disguise" his handwriting - and thanks once again for those "upside-down" characters. (Did he do it to introduce a degree of deniability or just to have a little fun, you think? Ho ho ho, what a gasser.)
The Exorcist letter ain't "natural". It's got those wonderful round dots on the i's that you don't like - and they appear on the envelope and liberally in the text too, you'll have noticed. And I'm sure he could spell "truly" if he wanted to... So.....
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Post by Admin Horan on Sept 12, 2014 20:03:20 GMT -6
Smithy: Are you reading my posts? I have pointed out several times that the Times-Herald published a life-size photocopy of their copy of the first letter on their front page August 4, 1969. And yes, there are "circle" periods in several places in that letter. And, if I recall correctly, a colon: is one period over another period. So, yes, I claim a copycat could have "known" about the circles. See? Absolutely nothing rules out a copycat. Ask morf. I did: tinyurl.com/ZodiacHoaxDebate I didn't even snicker.
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smithy
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Post by smithy on Sept 13, 2014 3:58:12 GMT -6
Mr H., I've read ALL your posts and I've understood some of 'em, too. I've even corrected a couple! (I see what you did up there btw, calling it a Bolo knife - very cunning.) I've just re-read what some bloke called Bill Robison was saying on this thread here: zodiackillerhoax1986.freeforums.net/thread/9/gary-stewarts-book?page=1#page=3 Yes - there are circle periods in the letter of the 31st produced in the TH of the 4th. Impressed! Way to go, Bill! There's no colon in that letter per se, but OK. My example of it reproduced is very poor - but OK. Coincidentally the letter writer produced a colon that way in his letter of August 4th - but OK. (I wonder who gave the newspaper the "what to look for" advice? They seem to zone right in on the spelling mistakes as being very important, and only mention "general writing style" in passing. I don't see a by-line anywhere. As usual.) OK! Tell me something, if you would. What's your problem with Hal Snook (the letter writer?) being the dude who wrote on the door?
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Post by Admin Horan on Sept 13, 2014 7:37:52 GMT -6
Smithy: Good, that's cleared up. Nothing at all rules out a copycat slayer at Lake Berryessa. There are exactly two possible people in the whole world (so far as we can know) who could have written that message on Bryan's car door. 1. The killer, Zodiac, or not. 2. Ray Land, the cop who "found" the car and the message after the ambulance left. That, by the way, also narrows down the time window to between 6:30 and 9:30.
So, IF the letters were a hoax (they were), then why couldn't the hoaxer know that is would be a good time to leave a Zodiac note? Because, there was no way for the hoaxer to know that the slayer had also worn a Zodiac symbol on his costume. Morf pointed that out, and it's an excellent point. UNLESS, of course, the hoaxer and the slayer were in some kind of cahoots—but if they were, then that means a conspiracy to commit MURDER, and not just a conspiracy to commit horseassery.
Is it bizarre that Ray Land was a murder suspect, AND the only person besides the killer, who could have written that graffito? No. He may have been the murderer. But, keep in mind, the shoe prints. Ray Land, so far as we can know, never had the opportunity to leave the crime scene and leave those shoe prints. Dennis Land? Maybe. He left the crime scene and drove back up to the highway to direct traffic down to the crime scene. The only other person who could have left those shoe prints was the killer. No one else had the OPPORTUNITY to do it. Every other cop (those were, and are, a very popular brand of police uniform shoe) is accounted for during that window of time. Even Snook has an alibi, even if it is his wife.
Is it bizarre that a copycat slaying took place in Snook's jurisdiction? Not necessarily. Especially if someone knew what he was up to. But on the other hand, why would a Vallejo slayer strike in Napa County at all? Once? And never write a letter about it? Especially since we know that "Zodiac" read only the papers available in Napa, and not all of the ones available in Vallejo? "Zodiac" did not live in Vallejo—he lived in Napa, but had direct connections to SF. Funny, that. But, no, the most obvious answer is, "A Napa nut job who did not even know that Vallejo's Code Killer was actually a Napa cop writing letters calling attention to police corruption in Vallejo decided to pin one of his own murders (there were several abductions/knife attacks in and around Napa from 1969-?) on said Code Killer."
Is it bizarre that Snook and Power didn't write any letters about Berryessa? Nope. Makes perfect sense, since they had NOTHING to write a letter about. The Napa Register published every scrap of information the Napa fuzz had on the attack. Not every scrap of information the killer would have had, like a piece of bloody cloth from one of the victims' shirts, or whatever, just everything Napa fuzz had in their files. The killer couldn't have known that. But Snook would have. And if the Code Killer was supposedly from Vallejo, he probably wouldn't have read the Register, anyway. You know what else Napa fuzz didn't have? A red herring "suspect" like Andy Jr or Fouke's old, fat, blond guy who Zodiac could claim to be. All they had was Dennis Land. You know what's funny? Zodiac didn't write a letter claiming to BE Dennis Land. Or the creeper ogling the girls on the beach (almost certainly Dennis Land.)
I mean, there's ZERO doubt Zodiac had access to SOME of Solano's files, including Hoffman's report, which mentions Andy Jr. The same Chronicle reporter who had a copy of Hoffman's report also knew that Fouke had seen his old, fat, blond guy walking toward the park, and that SPFD and searched the park for him, even though he did not match their suspect. Zodiac wrote letters claiming to be both of those guys, and never claimed to be any of the REAL suspects in those murders. And right there, in Napa's files, is a nice, fat, juicy "suspect" that no Zodiac "expert" believes killed Cecelia, and yet, NO LETTER FROM ZODIAC ABOUT HIM.
That implies that Zodiac knew about Dennis Land, but "didn't know" that Land was "innocent." That points us right back at Snook. Again. It doesn't prove Land was guilty of attacking the kids. But it does indicate that Zodiac—who only existed in epistolary form—was bizarrely reluctant to confirm "his" link to that attack. The one he supposedly autographed.
Soooooooooooo, is it POSSIBLE that the Zodiac hoaxer(s) and the Berryessa slayer were in some kind of cahoots BEFORE the attack? Mmmmmmmmaybe. But, that doesn't explain the total lack of cooperation between that slayer and the letter writer. AFTER the attack, since Snook had known land since he was a teenager, and was even one of his teachers? Maybe. Zodiac was suddenly frantic about "going" to SF and staying there.
I'll admit that Snook is a dead ringer for the Stine composites. But if the Zodiac argle bargle was some kind of "thrill kill" club, or ring of narcotics hit men, throwing the fuzz off their trail by way of writing letters to the papers, then I think they would have done a much more convincing job. The letters are a blatant hoax, as the letters themselves point out. But sure, it's possible. I just don't see any evidence for it.
Simplest explanation, and the one that covers all the known facts: Some unforeseen nut job copycatted that famous Code Killer guy, which happens all time, in fact, it would been odd if there had been NO copycats, and Snook simply had no way of dealing with it except ignoring it.
The only link between Snook and the letters is his handprinting, and his position to know the contents of some Solano County files. Everything else points to Power and Graysmith. Did they simply copy Snook's handprinting from day one? If so, why did the handprinting suddenly change, and then change back in the Exorcist letter?
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Post by Admin Horan on Sept 13, 2014 8:12:33 GMT -6
For those of you who are not Smithy, and wonder why I spend time answering his "questions," the answer is, IF someone, ANYONE, can prove that the Zodiac letters were NOT a hoax, then, I've identified the Zodiac Killer by his handprinting. And boy, oh boy, could I make a LOT of dollars, pounds, euros, and shekels "proving" that Zodiac was some kind of CONSPIRACY. I mean, start counting THAT money. So, yes, please, please, please, come one, come all.
A lot of people think I "beat" Morf in our "debate" the other night. That's not the point. The point is, we discussed the actual evidence and what it's worth. For example, as Morf pointed out, IF someone BESIDES the Berryessa attacker left that message on Bryan's car door, then they HAD to be in cahoots. That's not "winning" or "losing" a debate. That's deducing the truth from the available evidence.
Me pointing out that I got a lot of my evidence from Morf and his website is "winning" a debate. But, who cares? I do. Snicker. There, I got it out of my system. But beyond "me" "versus" "Morf" is the fact that these kids and their families never got ANY justice. There's something wrong with that, and splitting these horsehairs until the truth is beaten out of them is worth doing.
Sure, I admit, boy oh boy, could I make a LOT of money if someone, ANYONE, could just prove the "Zodiac Killer Letters" were not a hoax.
But . . .
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smithy
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Post by smithy on Sept 14, 2014 4:35:22 GMT -6
"Nothing at all rules out a copycat slayer at Lake Berryessa." Indeed, no. Never did. It's a hoax, right? That REQUIRES the Berryessa attacker to be a copycat 'cos if he ain't, then..... I'm challenging the idea that the attacker at Berryessa wrote on that door, because the conclusions which must be drawn if the hoaxer wrote on it are extensive.
There are lots of other things I don't like in the above, but for the moment I'm tired of playing Devil's Advocate, sorry! Just this if you would: When does the handwriting "change"? At the 6-page "little List" letter? Later? '71? '74? Earlier?
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Post by Admin Horan on Sept 14, 2014 16:53:40 GMT -6
The Belli letter, for sure. Maybe the November 9 bus bomb letter, but definitely, the Belli letter.
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smithy
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Post by smithy on Sept 15, 2014 11:11:48 GMT -6
Very kind of you to comment. I should have tried to help, perhaps, by opining on the above for you - very rude of me. I'll come back and do it when things calm down a bit. (Ready or not.) Meantime, yes, the Belli is a complete departure, different approach and tone and the writing's very different. Yet the envelope for the July 31st letter - the first one to the Chronicle - has handwriting which bears a very close resemblance to the characters used in the Belli letters.... And the envelope's use of the abbreviation "Calif" is a pretty good match on both. How very odd.
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Post by Admin Horan on Sept 16, 2014 9:33:28 GMT -6
One question EVERYONE I talked to in LE had was, "How did he mail the letters from downtown SF." If Power phoned info on Stine to Snook, and Snook wrote the letter, then met Power halfway and Power took the letter and stuffed it in an envelope with a piece of Stine's shirt, then where did they meet? Oakland? Marin County? Is there some location between SF and Napa that they both heave in common some way? Do I ever ask a question that has no answer?
Yeah, the person who wrote the Belli letter TRIED to forge the Zodiac handprinting. Some have even been convinced. Others have not. Keep I mind, and morf Pointed this out, we have confirmation in the files that Morrill concluded that the person who wrote the Bates Had To Die letters wrote the Zodiac letters. So take his "match" to the Belli Letter for what you think it's worth. But the Zodiac printing just isn't that hard to fake. Graysmith CAN do it. He's proven that.
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smithy
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Post by smithy on Sept 17, 2014 7:59:43 GMT -6
Yes, you mentioned this a while back and I imagine the blue meanies definitely know something about the timeframes between a "murder", a posting of a "Zodiac" letter and the location of Mr Hal Snook, or BELIEVE that they do, which they think alibi's him a lot better than Barbara does (really?) for the earlier hours of Lake Berryessa... No?
Like he was in hospital with two broken arms or some same such. Yes?
They're not telling, I suppose, but whatever it is, it's what's precluded Hal's soup being thoroughly stirred by LE, all these years eh? 'Til death do us part, indeed. Maybe. And you think it's PROBABLY the event with the shortest timescale associated with it - which is the Stine murder of course, where some collusion had to be used to get around the problem? Yes, I see. (Or perhaps you know it is, for sure.)
I don't care what they think that alibi is, mind you - I'm still not impressed! The question is "How did he mail the letters from downtown SF?" - not "How did he get at the Stine murder scene materials when he was in Honolulu?" after all. Pah!
We really think he could he not have passed one or more of his epistles to a third party and asked them to drop it into a box "while they're in the city"? Someone from his immediate family? A neighbour? Someone? A good friend from LE in the north valley? One of the Land brothers? Then there's always BART. And if you catch a bus from Napa to Vallejo and take the ferry to S.F. it only takes one and a half hours. I know that's true, I read it on the internet.
We don't need all the cloak-and-dagger with a shuffle between him and Power and whomsoever, do we? It just makes the whole idea of a hoax seem even more out-there, to me - addressing this unknown alibi with a confederate and a handover and goodness knows what-all. ("Search for the truth!" though it might be, this hoax chase, this truth may just suck, just a bit too much.)
Now if you know they both (Snook and Power - sounds like a TV show) liked the chowder in Sausalito (and I have to say I really do too) and regularly sat on each other's knees to eat it, then OK that adds something - but ain't it a long way to go around to address a problem that we're only guessing at? Ho hum. I'm guessing at the guesses.
The envelope of that first letter to the Chronicle being available to a "forger" (from the Chronicle?) who had ample time to come up with the Belli letter etc. etc. isn't a bad little theory, yeah, since the "Calif" is SO similar it actually looks copied between those envelopes. I could almost go for the fact that it WAS "forged" entire, that letter, yes. If completely necessary. But then the LL's a little further down in the Belli letter, where it looks very much like the writer got bored with his nicely rounded new "best copper-plate for my Lawyer" handwriting and edges back a little toward "native"? Well, I like those.
Why fake something so badly when you've got time, in any case? There was no time pressure on the creation of the Belli letter, was there? If I was faking that letter, I would and could have made it look more like the early stuff, I think. When do you think the Belli letter was conceived - right after the TV show? It was done "quickly"?
Now lastly, I hate to say it, but the shocking thing is that I absolutely agree with Morrill - this once - that the person who wrote the "Bates had to Die!" letters wrote the Zodiac letters. Sorry. I like the envelopes sooooo much on the Riverside letters, and it's sooooo fantastic an example of the MO which later popped up, more developed, to start things rolling after LHR, that I have it down as an early try-out which failed. Still. So that's me still off your Christmass list.
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Post by Admin Horan on Sept 18, 2014 7:12:08 GMT -6
Smithy:
When I talked to the different LE agencies about this, I still had not received the copy of the handwritten report with Hal Snook's signature visible, so I was leaning at that time toward Ray Land. But I knew he had been a murder suspect. The report I sent (for sale now at Amazon) laid out the case that Land hoaxed the letters. One question that the most astute investigator asked was, "What makes you think he had an alibi for the murder?" And I said, "He was on duty." And said source was not so sure about that as I was.
Was he thinking of Ray Land when he asked me that, or Snook? I don't know. If Snook, that would seem to indicate that 1. My source wasn't listening to me, and he turned out to be an EXCELLENT listener and reader, and 2. Snook was considered a murder suspect. I'm pretty darned sure that, guilty or not, Snook has never been considered a murder suspect. No, I think he knew I was talking about Land, knew I was wrong about that being his handprinting on the report instead of Snook's, but was still curious as to why I thought the letters were a hoax. So, I think his questions were more about why I thought Ray Land was not a good MURDER suspect. And I said, because the letters were a hoax, and that he had alibis for the other murders. And my source indicated some doubt about THOSE alibis, too.
But here's the funny thing. After I sent that report to the PDs and FBI, the FBI suddenly released all the pages that appeared to incriminate Ray and Dennis Land. Ray is still alive, so the only reason the FBI could legally release his pages is if he'd been CLEARED of murder. Somehow.
Two sources agreed (OFF the record, natch) that they believed the handwriting does indeed match. But they cleared the "wrong" guys on that match. They should have cleared Snook. But, they didn't. I don't think he was (or is) a murder suspect. I know Ray (and now know Dennis) was, so I'm pretty sure they did not notice that my report was "wrong" at the time and cleared Ray and Dennis because they were convinced the letters were indeed a hoax (none of them scoffed at that assertion, and some even acted like it was not news to them).
But, yeah, Snook's alibi is worse than Ray Land's. And he did look EXACTLY like the Stine composite. (Ray Land looked exactly like the description Fouke gave of his "suspect." In fact, he was an eerie twin of Arthur Leigh Allen.)
You know, I always wondered to whom, exactly, did "Zodiac" show his OTHER trophies from the Stine killing? He had taken ZERO trophies from LHR and BRS and LB that we know of. That's a HUGE break in MO. HUGE. And it wasn't just to write letters. MOST of the missing area of the shirt is still missing. So are the wallet and car keys. He deliberately dropped Bryan's keys. But he took Stine's.
To whom, exactly, did he feel the need to PROVE he killed Stine? His buddy?
Like I said, I can put what looks like a hell of a frame around Snook for being the Zodiac "Killer." What I can't do is prove it. But I CAN prove the letters were a hoax.
Now, if someone could just prove that the letters were not a hoax . . . Morf couldn't do it. Voigt doesn't have the guts to try. Who's left?
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smithy
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Post by smithy on Sept 21, 2014 3:31:22 GMT -6
Mr H., I can understand LE (or indeed anyone) being confused about "who was involved in writing the letters" based on comparisons to just that report. I bet you can too. On its own there's very little that's conclusive about who actually wrote it, is there? That's the bugger, as we say over here. At the time, though? Well, I would have thought it would have been much easier; especially with access to a lot of other hand written material. But then......
Your post also makes it seem that in that round of conversations with LE your onus was on the fact that alibi's for one or more of the series breaks the relationship between them all and absolves (whomsoever) from being responsible for any one of them. And of course, that ain't necessarily so, as the song says. (As we have discussed before.)
Re: the FBI release of further pages - thats interesting. Might be coincidence. Might not. The FBI certainly know (and have for a while) that the Zodiac Killer satirical comedy stinks to high heaven as a "single multiple murderer" case. (If you haven't read John Douglas's material on the subject yet, you should. They snatched the letters away from him just as he was about to take a look at them to support his conclusions. They've done him no favours....)
Re: LE acting as if the letters were a hoax, and that it wasn't a surprise to them that you said so - well, let's face it, how could they be?
Do you think the question about "How did he post the letters...." might have pertained to Ray (and/or) Dennis Land then, rather than Hal Snook? That would make some sense. The whereabouts of the three of them - and their relative propensity to travel into the city "on business" etc. would be entirely different. Is that it? That simple? Wrong pigeon?
Snook looks a bit like the Stine composite, yes. So did most of the clean-cut glasses-wearing population of California of the time. If you were a hippy you didn't look like him.. otherwise, you did..... As you very well know!
Now - re: "That's a HUGE break in MO. HUGE." Just wait a second! It's only a break in MO if there is an MO. If there is some link between crimes and there is some need to "prove" something to someone by someone(?!) Since I'm still of (distinctly) the opinion that there ain't no combination MO or "murder club" at work here, I'll go with the fact that Stine's murderer took the keys 'cos he'd switched off the cab ignition - and took the wallet 'cos he wanted to rifle through it (no pun) at leisure. No mystery. No trophies. That trophy stuff's for TV, anyway.
Say - I think the envelope for the Confession letter with its lovely circular colon (and indeed many other circular forms of punctuation) compares very well to the car door at Berryessa. I'm still not past that, whoever it was who was playing "by knife" at the lake.
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