Who do you think the Zodiac Killer actually is?

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I think that Zodiac was a cop who was in a relationship with Darlene Ferrin. He did not commit the first murders but used those murders to create the idea of a mad serial killer in order to cover up his murder of Darlene Ferrin. If you look at the details of the Darlene Ferrin murder closely, you may suspect Darlene knew this person.

He actually admitted to being in a relationship with Ferrin. He appeared at the police station soon after the murder of Ferrin even though he was not on duty, putting him in proximity of the telephone booth where the first call was made. In that call he mis-directs the investigation towards a mad serial killer.

Lake Berryessa attacks motive was to build on this notion and write on the door of the car in order to link the first two attacks which were not actually connected.

An understanding of the Batman TV show which was popular at the time provides the background for the subsequent murders. He appears to use that TV program to provide some inspiration for the communications and the bizarre nature of the offences. . The zodiac killer was actually the title of one of the Batman episodes. The lake Berryessa attack occurs 12 months after King Tut episode to the day(who collects slaves for the afterlife) commits an offence at Gotham reservoir. There are other links, in fact too many for it not to be the inspiration for the Zodiac Killer. I actually went through every episode to see where he got his ideas. If you look at what he communicated cryptically (not the content of the cyphers) it actually solves to his name.

<modsnip - accusations/insinuations against a person not named POI by LE>

I hope this is of interest to others.
I am new to this forum and am not supposed to identify my suspect by name. I apologise. He is a Vallejo police officer who looks like the Zodiac Killer sketch, Was in a confirmed relationship with one of the victims, Darlene Ferrin in the period immediately before her death.

The motive of the killings was to cover up Darlene's murder. He did not commit the first murders who I think were committed by a school colleague of the two victims. By taking responsibility and linking the first two murders, he gave himself an alibi. The killings are about leading Law Enforcement away from his involvement in Darlenes shooting. At the time of the first phone call, Darlene Ferrin was not dead. That was what the phone call and the first letter were about. The first letter reads like a police report for which he had access. He only becomes 'The Zodiac' after the first two major events. Lake Berryessa was about the message on the car door and creating the idea of a crazed serial killer. San Francisco was about muddying the waters and justifying his communication. He did not commit any other murders after Paul Stein. He did not kill Cheri Bates in Riverside.

I was able to solve the riddle of his letters, by looking at the Batman TV series. The Penguin, The Riddler, The Minstrel, The Zodiac. The zodiac was the name of one of the Batman episodes. The Minstrel was a character whom played the Mikado.(the mikado letter). Looking at this episode helps you work out who he is. King Tut collected slaves for the afterlife etc., The Zodiac claims in his letter that if you work this out 'you will have my name'. Most people think the name is in the cipher. It is not. It is like a gigantic riddle and it indeed gives you his surname. I worked this out in 2020-2021.

We cannot identify anyone who is not named by LE, I will say he is a much better suspect than anyone who was named by LE to date. Interestingly as stated on this thread that LE are looking at a police officer as the Zodiac killer. The suspect died in 2008. His obituary omits the fact he was a Vallejo police officer. He was fired for offences committed while he was a police officer. He was never charged. He has a nickname that has a link to a powered saw. Most of his life he worked in a clerical position with a west coast gas and electrical utility.

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Hello.My name is Emre. I'm from Turkey. I have a great interest on cold cases, bringing justice to the victims and the psychology of serial offenders and other criminals.
We had a possible serial killer in İstanbul who allegedly threw his/her victims's legs to the sea. Also there is an unsolved murder, victim was a young high school student named Çağla Tuğaltay. I would like to know your opinions about Çağla Tuğaltay case. A new eye can make a different.
For a long time, i have been searching serial killers, especially serial killers cold cases. Zodiac is a great research era and i have some opinions on this criminal.
I examined, i mean found the letters and tried to see differences between letters in Zodiac Killer alleged letters. I saw that there were differences in the writing style of letter f in the letters. Maybe the killer and the letter author weren't same people.
About Zodiac, ı taught that he was a lonely man with the great hunger of attention. He could have important problems with an elder female, mother, sister, teacher etc. If his job didn' t interest him really and his boss was a woman, i wouldn't be surprised.
He loved attention. His murders were very important him to become stronger. If i was him, i couldn't leave the area of the murders. I think he still lives, if alive, in San Francisco Bay Area and visits the murder scenes. Somebody knows him and maybe one day a person will come forward and tell the reality about his identity. I hope this will happen.
Thank you for reading with my best regards.
 
Hello.My name is Emre. I'm from Turkey. I have a great interest on cold cases, bringing justice to the victims and the psychology of serial offenders and other criminals.
We had a possible serial killer in İstanbul who allegedly threw his/her victims's legs to the sea. Also there is an unsolved murder, victim was a young high school student named Çağla Tuğaltay. I would like to know your opinions about Çağla Tuğaltay case. A new eye can make a different.
For a long time, i have been searching serial killers, especially serial killers cold cases. Zodiac is a great research era and i have some opinions on this criminal.
I examined, i mean found the letters and tried to see differences between letters in Zodiac Killer alleged letters. I saw that there were differences in the writing style of letter f in the letters. Maybe the killer and the letter author weren't same people.
About Zodiac, ı taught that he was a lonely man with the great hunger of attention. He could have important problems with an elder female, mother, sister, teacher etc. If his job didn' t interest him really and his boss was a woman, i wouldn't be surprised.
He loved attention. His murders were very important him to become stronger. If i was him, i couldn't leave the area of the murders. I think he still lives, if alive, in San Francisco Bay Area and visits the murder scenes. Somebody knows him and maybe one day a person will come forward and tell the reality about his identity. I hope this will happen.
Thank you for reading with my best regards.

Welcome to Websleuths. You make some very good points in your post.

You might consider starting some threads on the other cases you mentioned.
 
Just saw the Netflix series. So is Arthur Leigh Allen the individual that most people think is the Zodiac Killer or is the latest documentary trying to run with a specific narrative while ignoring things that make it look like it would have been someone else?

I'm not familiar with who all the key suspects are.
 
I’m going to work on a timeline but after watching the new Netflix series I realized something. D.B cooper and the zodiac killer look a lot alike. Even weirder, if you assume that the “D” stands for Daniel and spell out Daniel B cooper it fits perfectly in the unsolved 13 letter cipher. I am going to look deeper into this but I believe the zodiac killer and D.B cooper could possibly be the same man.
 
I’m going to work on a timeline but after watching the new Netflix series I realized something. D.B cooper and the zodiac killer look a lot alike. Even weirder, if you assume that the “D” stands for Daniel and spell out Daniel B cooper it fits perfectly in the unsolved 13 letter cipher. I am going to look deeper into this but I believe the zodiac killer and D.B cooper could possibly be the same man.

They really are two entirely different types of crimes. The person that we know as D.B. Cooper didn't attempt to hurt anyone. All we have evidence for is that he was trying to steal some money. Whereas Zodiac was a legitimate killer. Most serial killers aren't really thieves.
 
I just finished watching the Netflix documentary. I was shocked. To me, all signs point to Allen. I don't know a lot about this case, however, except what I have seen in the documentary, the movie and other TV series' here and there. I would love to hear more from others who don't think Allen is the killer and why. I will go through this forum and may find the information there but any other insights into this case and other suspects would be welcomed!
 
I just finished watching the Netflix documentary. I was shocked. To me, all signs point to Allen. I don't know a lot about this case, however, except what I have seen in the documentary, the movie and other TV series' here and there. I would love to hear more from others who don't think Allen is the killer and why. I will go through this forum and may find the information there but any other insights into this case and other suspects would be welcomed!

Allen ticks a lot of the general boxes :

- lived in the right place (Vallejo)
- loved ciphers
- owned guns
- built bombs
- loved the Mikado
- owned a Zodiac watch with the killer's logo

Like, there can't be more than a few guys in Northern California who fit that group of specifics.

The downside for him is that he was a huge, very recognizable dude who doesn't really line up well with the composites and witness descriptions, and that handwriting experts uniformly don't think his writing matches.

If the family in the Netflix doc is telling the truth, than it's pretty cut-and-dried that he's the killer. But some of the stories they told were weird (leaving a bunch of kids in a car and then running down to a beach to commit two murders?) and there was probably a financial motivation for them (they didn't look wealthy) to selling this story. So I don't know.

Paul Doerr is still the suspect who has most made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
 
A lot of these documentaries have a specific answer they try to get to so trying to focus on one specific person isn't surprising. How honest the people in the documentary were actually being would be interesting though. And if they themselves were just trying to get fifteen minutes of fame through a Netflix show.

Pretty much everyone they were talking about in the documentary died a long time ago so it's not like they would be burning too many bridges if they told some 'half truths'. I do find it a little far fetched that the killer would bring some kids along that he actually cared about on his killing spree. Usually these people want to keep people from their regular lives away from their killing activities.
 
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I read Graysmith’s book a long time ago. I’ve read a lot of books on Zodiak since and the recent documentaries.
Nobody has stood out to me as the killer more than Arthur Leigh Allen.
The new Netflix documentary is pretty interesting. I haven’t watched the last episode yet. My only issue with it is there’s no way to verify the two times he took the children with him when he committed two murders in Southern California.
Still think it’s Arthur Leigh Allen though.
 
I read Graysmith’s book a long time ago. I’ve read a lot of books on Zodiak since and the recent documentaries.
Nobody has stood out to me as the killer more than Arthur Leigh Allen.
The new Netflix documentary is pretty interesting. I haven’t watched the last episode yet. My only issue with it is there’s no way to verify the two times he took the children with him when he committed two murders in Southern California.
Still think it’s Arthur Leigh Allen though.
There is no possibility that the killer is Allen. He bears no resemblance at all to the witness descriptions.

My two most likely suspects, to date:

William MacDuff Andrew

Paul Doerr
 
There is no possibility that the killer is Allen. He bears no resemblance at all to the witness descriptions.

My two most likely suspects, to date:

William MacDuff Andrew

Paul Doerr

I’d have to disagree as to Allen resembling witness descriptions but it’s OK to disagree, especially since we’ll probably never know for sure who it was.
 
Just saw the Netflix series. So is Arthur Leigh Allen the individual that most people think is the Zodiac Killer or is the latest documentary trying to run with a specific narrative while ignoring things that make it look like it would have been someone else?

I'm not familiar with who all the key suspects are.
I watched this Netflix docu series yesterday.
I don't think Zodiac is Leigh Allen.

jmo
 
I think it’s a high possibility that Dennis Rader, BTK, was also zodiac.

I’ve been trying to narrow down his whereabouts during that time.
Rader would have still been in the military during the time period the Zodiak killings were happening plus his killings had an extreme sexual element to them. There is no evidence the zodiak killings had a sexual element to them outside of him just picking out easy targets. Zodiak seemed more interested in puzzle solving.
 
Allen ticks a lot of the general boxes :

- lived in the right place (Vallejo)
- loved ciphers
- owned guns
- built bombs
- loved the Mikado
- owned a Zodiac watch with the killer's logo

Like, there can't be more than a few guys in Northern California who fit that group of specifics.

The downside for him is that he was a huge, very recognizable dude who doesn't really line up well with the composites and witness descriptions, and that handwriting experts uniformly don't think his writing matches.

If the family in the Netflix doc is telling the truth, than it's pretty cut-and-dried that he's the killer. But some of the stories they told were weird (leaving a bunch of kids in a car and then running down to a beach to commit two murders?) and there was probably a financial motivation for them (they didn't look wealthy) to selling this story. So I don't know.

Paul Doerr is still the suspect who has most made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
I agree way too big for the witness descriptions. He may have murdered people in Southern California. The only piece of evidence that made me think twice is the chicken blood on the front seat. I thought WTF.
 
solve this puzzle

Who collects slaves for the afterlife in 1968? Then look at the TV show to work out who Zodiac is.

From the cipher”It was not me on that TV show”

Everyone thinks it’s about the conversation with Martin Belli. It’s not.
 

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