Zodiackiller.com Message Board: General Zodiac Discussion: A Master of Disguise 60's style

how many ways can one change their appearance?
from head to toe. finding an old 60's ad for shoe lifts,brought speculation of how much height could one easily gain.two and half to three inches with a shoe lift and an equal amount with shoes would seem achievable. perhaps with construction or cowboy boots.
a hat or "big hair" could add more inches to an illusion of height.
what else might a "master of disguise" have in his bag ?
although Batman was a master of disguise, there was no mistaking him when he was disguised as the caped crusader.

Not only is very easy to change one's appearance, it's also possible for perps to leave misleading physical evidence. One example is the burglar who wears shoes/boots etc, twice his size and never the same boot but always the same size. Hence, the physcial profile based on the shoe size is inaccurate, also the planting of false fingerprints at a crime scene is not unusual by perps. (Although a good crime scene tech can ID those latents as false). Recently worked a case where a perp set the crime scene to appear as if he had cut himself on a glass window while entering the victims residense leaving a nice trail of blood and of course DNA, too bad the blood was not his.

Zoe: A person, as you've stated, can change their appearance in a number of ways. However, I fully believe that Z's disguise was kept simple (ie, the donning of a hood at Lake Berryessa. For that matter, it's also possible that he donned the hood at Lake Herman Road, and perhaps even while committing the number of other murders that he "claimed" he'd committed.). I agree with you on the "shoe lift" concept as well. My opinion is that Z wore a pair of FAKE glasses that would stick in the minds of the eyewitnesses, a set of shoe lifts, and extra clothing beneath a parka to appear heavier. It is also possible that he wore a wig, especially if he was bald or balding. At any rate, my true point is that I believe that Z wore a very simple disguise that EASILY altered his appearance.

13words: Just curious as to whom the blood DID belong too. As for "planting of false fingerprints," it reminds me of the Paul Stine murder. Zodiac did spend SOME time at the crime scene following the murder. It has been widely speculated/assumed that he was wiping the taxi cab to remove any prints. On the other hand, Z claimed to have never left any prints behind him, contrary to what the police had claimed. And yet, CA DOJ apparently has some possible Z prints on file. My point is, perhaps the possible Z prints were "plants," possibly from someone else's hands. Maybe the possibility still exists that there was more than one perp involved in the Z crimes, or Z was much more gruesome than we'd ever imagined. Is it possible that Z carried a victim's hand with him to leave false leads?

Yes, I do realize I'm pushing things a little here, but what do we REALLY know about Z's dementia? Is it possible that he was a "trophy collector," and removed body parts from his POSSIBLE victims?

Can anyone cite an example where a POSSIBLE Z victim was found to have been mutilated in such a fashion?

Scott

Scott, I'm with you on the glasses, doubtful on the crewcut wig, and very skeptical on the prints. The witnesses did not assume or speculate but were very specific in their recollection of Z wiping down the cab, and mentioned nothing that could be construed as the planting of fake prints.

If someone really wants to sell the severed hand theory, it would help if they found a news report from 1964-1969 of a dead body found in the Bay area with its right hand missing. Until then, I'm sticking with the evidence that the detectives take seriously.

--Jake
http://members.aol.com/Jakewark
"This is the Zodiac Speaking..."

Jake: I agree that the "trophy hunter" scenario as described above is REALLY farfetched. I'm just not convinced that any of the fingerprints contained within the files are truly Z's. I'm also supportive of the "evidence that the detectives take seriously." If only there was more of it. It seems unlikely that Z ever left any prints behind, otherwise they would likely have matched them to at least ONE of the suspects by now.

Scott

I guess I just have trouble limiting the suspect pool to a half dozen flakes who had been fingered by their friends and enemies. Regardless, SFPD has shown great faith in the prints, and all of the names we know about have been cleared.

--Jake
http://members.aol.com/Jakewark
"This is the Zodiac Speaking..."

Jake: You said, "SFPD has shown great faith in the prints." Really? Are you trying to say that the prints have not been matched with any known set of prints on file, and therefore we have no ID? Or, the CA DOJ does have a match, but they are useless because they belong to someone who is either already imprisoned, or on the slab? I'm not chiding you, I'd really like your input. Have I overlooked something?

As for "all of the names we know about have been cleared." I'm assuming we're just talking prints here, right?

Respectfully,
Scott

It's ok, Scott, you can take the kid gloves off. SFPD -- not to mention Vallejo -- have checked dozens of suspects against the prints, and apparently continue to do so. This has been corroborated by Someone Who Knows. They have not yet matched any suspect or anyone else, with one exception. From the context of the FBI report that it's mentioned in, though, this lone matching print must have belonged to either a cop or a newspaper man.

As for our suspects, yes, I was thinking of prints, but one newspaper report had Allen being "dismissed as a suspect" with no ifs, ands, or buts. Also, we should acknowledge that O'Hare was never printed and that we've never seen confirmation that Ted K's prints were compared with Z's.

--Jake
http://members.aol.com/Jakewark
"This is the Zodiac Speaking..."

JAKE> this lone matching print must have belonged to either a cop or a newspaper man.

R> OK, I'll bite. Which print was that?

JAKE> ... O'Hare was never printed

R> We don't know that. I mean, I'm sure he was never printed by anyone involved in the Zodiac
investigation, but I think it's hard to get through life nowadays without being
fingerprinted somewhere somehow.

Roger

Jake: "Dozens of suspects against the prints"?

Gee, it's only been, let's see, how many years? So, by your calculations, they should be COMPLETELY finished in what, another hundred years?

As for, "corroborated by Someone Who Knows," I have to be honest with you, that means absolutely nothing to me. I prefer empirical evidence, not hearsay.

Scott

ps. How do we KNOW that we have a set of Z's prints? Again, if I'm overlooking something, point me in the right direction so that I can see it for myself.

Scott wrote:
"Gee, it's only been, let's see, how many years? So, by your calculations, they should be COMPLETELY finished in what, another hundred years?"

Scott, you inquired about the faith held by Law Enforcement in the prints, not the means used to catch the Zodiac. I didn't say that this method was going to locate the Zodiac in the absence of any other investigation. The two are entirely different topics.

"As for, "corroborated by Someone Who Knows," I have to be honest with you, that means absolutely nothing to me."

I guess I don't blame you, but I can safely say that my source is closer to the investigation than anyone posting on this board. Whether you want to take my word for it is your own business.

--Jake
http://members.aol.com/Jakewark
"This is the Zodiac Speaking..."

Scott wrote:
"ps. How do we KNOW that we have a set of Z's prints?"

We have a police report indicating that bloody prints were found in and on Stine's taxi. They have not been matched to any policeman, fireman, or anyone else. If they aren't Z's, they belong
to an invisible man who came upon the cab, reached in, touched Stine, touched the cab, and left without being spotted by the kids or the cops who were preserving the crime scene minutes later.

We also have prints from a letter that Toschi said did not belong to any postal worker or Chronicle employee, though I guess they could belong to the guy who sold Z the stationery.

There are two prints in particular that VPD seems to have great faith in; they're from an early letter, and were the first to be checked against Allen when VPD revived the case in the early '90s.

--Jake
http://members.aol.com/Jakewark
"This is the Zodiac Speaking..."

The Roger wrote:
"OK, I'll bite. Which print was that?"

I wish I knew. There's an FBI report that states (I'm paraphrasing here, I don't have the file in front of me) "38 prints this case not identical ALLEN" and "37 prints this case not identical [redacted]." Maybe Toschi? Maybe Stine?

As for O'Hare, you're right -- I think as a teacher he had to be printed, and maybe as a Government official, too.

--Jake

Jake: Thanks for the info. I knew that the bloody prints found on Stine's cab existed, but never knew that it had been tested against all of the emergency personnel who were present that night.
If that's the case, then I would agree that there's an excellent possibility that they belonged to Z. Also, to your knowledge, were comparisons ever made between the cab prints and those found on the letters?

Again, please forgive any oversights on my part. I'm still sifting through tons of information, including all of the messages posted on the board.

As for your "source," It's easy to be filled with doubt when the person in question is unknown. However, I don't recall your posts being anything other than informative, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

Scott

I wrote:
"...closer to the investigation than anyone posting on this board."

I should probably have said "the active investigation" so as not to slight Tom or his monumental efforts here.

As flaky as it sounds, sometimes we have to take things on faith alone. With people like us jamming the ether with all kinds of erroneous, self-aggrandizing, and/or crackpot theories,
it's no wonder that law enforcement keeps certain elements of the case close to the vest. No good detective is going to share information on a recent suspect, for instance, with one of us, who rank below even the press on the cop Trust-O-Meter. Regardless, while I've been assured that SFPD value the cab prints, I'll be the first to admit that I haven't seen the reports to prove that the EMTs were printed and eliminated. There was even a rumor attributed to another law enforcement source that says they weren't.

So who to believe? I guess it depends on whether your suspect was eliminated on print evidence.

--Jake
http://members.aol.com/Jakewark
"This is the Zodiac Speaking..."

I don't think any suspect has ever been "eliminated" on account of fingerprint comparisons. If that were the case, the SFPD wouldn't have continually pestered Arthur Allen for twenty years after he had supposedly been "eliminated." But the take of the police (and it's quite reasonable, actually) is that you can't prosecute someone on the basis of speculation; you've got to have some hard, cold evidence that can be presented before a jury. I've been told this by two SFPD officers (Bruton and Repetto) close to the case, both of whom have stated that there is no certainty as to the prints on file belonging to Zodiac. If they match a suspect, fine. If they don't match, and no other hard evidence is forthcoming (such as DNA) there's no point in maintaining him as an active suspect, because without it you will never get a conviction.

Doug's right -- the only person we've actually seen ruled out was George Waters, Darlene's stalker, and this was on the basis of an alibi.

I guess I should revise those statements, too, then, and refer to the suspects as "checked unsuccessfully against the case prints."

--Jake
http://members.aol.com/Jakewark
"This is the Zodiac Speaking..."

Well once again I'm reminded that the Graysmith book is full of inaccuracies-I was under the impression that the only print was the palm print Zodiac left on the door frame as he leaned on it to wipe off the dashboard. Forgive me if this information is elsewhere on the site, where were the other prints located? Although as Jake said the witnesses "mentioned nothing that could be construed as the planting of false prints" it is obvious that he missed some while he was wiping down the cab is it not? Possibly he did plant them before and intentionally "missed" them. Scott's severed hand theory is a bit "out there" but aren't so many other aspects of this case? I think he used another technique that wasn't so
"bulky" maybe using casts of someone elses in a latex-oriented compound. Any other ideas? Of course since this was Zodiac's riskiest murder maybe he did get careless. It would be interesting to know what databases these prints have been through over the years. As far as his disguise (other than Lake Berryessa) I think all he used was the glasses. His statement in the Stine letter that he looked "entirely (forgive the correct spelling!) different" when he wasn't doing his thing was just a ruse.

Mark wrote:
"Well once again I'm reminded that the Graysmith book is full of inaccuracies..."

Yeah, but we should bear in mind that much of the info that we take for granted today was simply not available to RG. The flubs he makes on TV or at the APB site are what gets my Irish up.

"where were the other prints located?"

There were bloody prints on the right front door handle, as well as clean but suspect prints throughout the cab.

"It would be interesting to know what databases these prints have been through over the years."

At least a few prints were run through the FBI's AFIS system, to no avail. We aren't sure which prints, though.

I devote a short section of my site (linked below) to fingerprint evidence, if you'd like to give it a look. It's in the "Analysis" section.

--Jake
http://members.aol.com/Jakewark
"This is the Zodiac Speaking..."

Jake-
Thanks for your informative input (as always), I tend to forget Graysmith's book was published 15 years ago and alot more has come out since then. Mark

I watched a true story about a man who asked a friend to to go to the police and pretend to be him. The police wanted to check out all the men within a certain age for DNA samples. They got away with fooling the police,but someone over heard the two of them talking about it, and called the police. Who's to say the real Z killer didn't have one of his friends get a picture ID using the "killers" name knowing that he was a suspect, because he was asked to go to SFPD or VPD and give printing samples and hand prints? This wouldn't have worked for Allen because they new just what he looked like.But what if it was one of the suspects that the police hadn't seen before? Maybe the police just phoned the guy and asked if he would come in,wouldn't that work? If not why?

What interesting post , I was expecting a rehash
of the obvious.
Scott as gruesome as it sounds sure z could have left some false prints behind and he would not have need to bring a whole hand, fingers would travel lighter.
13 words wow !!! what an amazing case you mentioned, every defense attorney should take a look at that one. After reading it I've got to wonder how many proof positive cases were tied up
with planted evidence.