It must be Arthur Allen Leigh IMO

[Meffy]

Mageau ID-ed Allen's face, they found the exact shoes and size that matched the killer in his residence, and the body and face description of Shepard and Hartnell fit perfectly too. Even the small glove size (7) and type from the cab was among his stuff. He had bombs that zodiac threatened with, was into school children that he talked about killing, and had a Zodiac watch with the symbol. He bragged the whole detailed plan to his friend Donald Cheney, and told another (Spinelli) he was Zodiac and how he would prove it with the cabbie.

It's almost too much.

The obtained DNA from the envelope didn't match, but there's nothing that says it's Zodiac's. He could have had someone (even staff at the post office) lick the envelopes (to give them others' fingerprints) which he even asked his friend Cheney to do (saying he was allergic to glue). With the cipher that took half a century to crack, Allen was not a regular joe, so to have someone do his envelopes is not really a big leap when fingerprints was THE big thing at the time, and that he would come up with something to avoid it and even use as a diversion is almost a given.

The fingerprint from the cab is partial and AFAIK inconclusive and could even have been from a police or someone else at the murder scene. The killer was seen wiping the car after cutting the cabbie's shirt, so unlikely they were his. The police incompetence with the black man suspect description speaks volumes how they operate, so it's not at all unreasonable that one of them briefly touched the car in the commotion.

The sketch by the kids who saw the cabbie murder does not fit with the survivors' description and even the police officer who spotted Zodiac. Even the basics like age and weight were completely off. Zodiac disguising himself putting on glasses and dying his hair was almost to be expected given his MO.

The whole ploy was to act out a fantasy and kill his crush Ferrin buried in apparently random murders (like Agatha Christie ABC murders like Allen had told friend Cheney), that he anyway fantasized about, become famous / and get into contract killing, but the plan failed and when he was almost caught, he quit. Allen was known to be intelligent and knew when to stop, like for example the Golden State killer, so that's what he did.

 

[Meffy]

One curious thing is the guy in the boat that came to stare at Shepard and Hartnell without saying a word even when they were shouting at him, telling what had happened.

Likely Zodiac don't you think? Arthur used to fish in the area, and I believe had a boat or access to one. It would be a perfect getaway. Just park it nearby and pretend you're fishing.

 

[Meffy]

 

[Benoit Bawles]

ALA is my favorite suspect as well. Is the evidence against him circumstantial? Yes, and there is a great deal of it. Is the evidence against other suspects circumstantial? Also yes, and in most cases there is a lot less of it (he looked like a sketch, he lived in San Francisco...etc). Even minus zodiac, Allen was a nut. He had bomb making materials, he did weird sexual stuff with teenage boys in a trailer, he had a history of military discipline and of getting fired from a job for inappropriate conduct.
Also the DNA non match has been debunked. It's been established that the DNA sample was taken from the outside surface of the envelope, and was probably touch dna from one of the detectives. Any DNA in the flap or stamp glue could be so old and degraded it might not be useable.

 

[Benoit Bawles]

In addition with the DNA non match now being irrelevant, I agree we shouldn't put too much into the bloody fingerprint in the cab. 1970's forensic tech was pretty basic by modern standards, and the back of a city cab is a soup bowl of evidence. A modern forensic team could pull hair, fiber, print and dna traces from a few dozen people out of a cab, or a bus stop or cheap hotel room or any public place. And sketches are hit and miss, a couple of the EAR/ONS sketches remarkably captured JDD's appearance, but on the other hand you have the hooded unabomber sketch which was very artistically done but didn't really look a lot like Ted K. The cab sketch could be accurate but it could be a combination of teenage kids giving a poor description to a forensic artist who wasn't the best interpreter in his field.

 

[AM90]

There are good arguments for Arthur Leigh Allen and good reasons against him. Mike Mageau did say Allen was his attacker but that was from a photo line-up, and the police considered the identification invalid because Allen did not match Mageau's description of his attacker which was a man who was 5'8, who had brown hair, and who weighed 200 pounds. Allen was balding, 6'0, and around 250 pounds. Nancy Slover said Arthur Leigh Allen's voice didn't sound like the man whom she heard on the phone. Arthur Leigh Allen's DNA doesn't match the Zodiac's. Still, there are a lot of weird coincidences that make him look guilty like the bloody knives in his car on the day of the Lake Berryessa attacks. If he is not the Zodiac, he is a very unlucky man.

 

[AM90]

Also the DNA non match has been debunked. It's been established that the DNA sample was taken from the outside surface of the envelope, and was probably touch dna from one of the detectives. Any DNA in the flap or stamp glue could be so old and degraded it might not be useable.

I read that they collected the DNA beneath a stamp and had to use new technology to separate it from the glue.

 

[AM90]

I read that they collected the DNA beneath a stamp and had to use new technology to separate it from the glue.

My apologies, Benoit. After more research, I have found out that Dr Cydne Holt never stated on the 2002 Primetime Zodiac Killer special that the DNA sample was taken from under the stamp. She stated that fingerprint DNA was taken from one of the letters but the special never specified where but certainly did shamefully and deceitfully frame it in a way to imply that it was obtained from underneath the stamp. It would be interesting to hear from Dr Holt directly where the DNA came from.

 

[The_Florida_Monster]

I too think Arthur Leigh Allen is the most likely suspect based on research I've conducted. I personally think Gary Stewart really did more harm than good with this Most Dangerous Game book. While it did bring some attention to the case, it became a sideshow and really seemed like more of a cash grab for the co-writer.
Arthur Leigh Allen has always been the most likely subject. Most other suspects I've encountered fall short and while most of the Allen evidence is circumstantial, it is by far the most likely explanation.

 

[Omori]

One curious thing is the guy in the boat that came to stare at Shepard and Hartnell without saying a word even when they were shouting at him, telling what had happened.

Likely Zodiac don't you think? Arthur used to fish in the area, and I believe had a boat or access to one. It would be a perfect getaway. Just park it nearby and pretend you're fishing.

I read in one book that this killing was likely filmed. It has to be considered. The first two Zodiac murders and Cherry Jo Bates were done at night or in the late evening but the Lake Berryessa attack was in broad daylight. He wore a scary-looking black hood but he did not cover his face in the earlier killings. He stabbed his victims with a long bayonet even though he had a gun. He bound his victims at Lake Berryessa but in no other killing. The hood wasn't to keep Shepard and Hartnell from seeing his face--they were both supposed to die. But if he was being filmed, the audience watching the film would be able to pick the killer out. Where were the cameras? Likely on the lake. There were people on the lake at the time. After being stabbed, Hartnell begged a man in a boat to help them but the man said nothing. Was he a cameraman or lookout? We had no reason to even consider this a Zodiac killing except the writing on Hartnell's car door proves it. But was the writer the one who attacked Shepard and Hartnell? Or did he stay back by Hartnell's car and act as a lookout while another man, a recruit, did the killing?

If the Lake Berryessa attack was being filmed then Zodiac is not a lone assassin. He was working with a group of people who were into murder. A cult, I would assume. Many think the killer was Arthur Leigh Allen. The killer at Lake Berryessa may have been Allen but he was not the one who shot Mageau and Ferrin despite Mageau picking him out of a photo lineup. That man was described as about 5'8" 180-200 lbs with a slight paunch and a pompadour hairstyle. Allen was already in his 30s by the time Mageau and Ferrin were shot and was kind of balding by then. The Lake Berryessa attacker weighed about 220 lbs and stood 6 feet tall or so. The killer of Paul Stein and the would-be abductor and killer of Kathleen Johns doesn't look like Allen or Mr. Pompadour. He was older, thinner and had a military bearing. Johns described him as being perhaps 160-170 lbs. Then we also need to know how Allen knew Darlene. Her killer wasn't just some wacky neighbor. He and Darlene had some kind of a history. He left her gifts that he personally deIivered. He even showed up at a party Darlene threw and her sister spoke to him. He supposedly questioned Darlene about her finances. Does this sound like Arthur Leigh Allen? There is no evidence that Allen knew her.