[HN Gopher] Has the Zodiac killer mystery been solved again?
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Has the Zodiac killer mystery been solved again?
Author : tptacek
Score : 87 points
Date : 2022-09-24 16:18 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.lamag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.lamag.com)
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Has anyone on HN read the author's 2016 novel, _I Hate the
| Internet_?
| adventured wrote:
| > She offers a number of points meant to exonerate him, some more
| persuasive than others. For instance, if Paul Doerr were going to
| kill a woman, why didn't he kill Rose, "the one that was causing
| him so much grief and aggravation?"
|
| For the same reason John Gacy didn't murder his wives. For the
| same reason serial killers typically don't kill the people
| closest to them.
|
| > Finally, she insists, "If Paul had done something like this, on
| his deathbed, he would have admitted it."
|
| He wouldn't have admitted it on his deathbed because he had a
| living daughter that would have to suffer for his deeds after he
| was gone.
|
| > She suspects that given Paul's military training, he would
| never have chosen the .22 caliber pistol, meant for small game,
| Zodiac used at Lake Herman Road
|
| There are all manner of reasons a mentally deranged person like
| Paul Doerr may choose to do something. Perhaps it was a gun he
| was able to use, safely discard and that it would be difficult to
| track back to him. He may have chosen a .22 to intentionally
| cause suffering rather than for maximum damage. He may have
| considered it greater sport, increasing the difficulty.
|
| > Rather, she thinks it would have been more his style to use his
| bow and arrow
|
| She clearly has no idea what his style was. Someone with even an
| average IQ, intent on killing other people (and planning on not
| being caught in the process), would not use a bow and arrow.
| That's on the list of things they absolutely would not use. I may
| know Paul Doerr better than this woman, after reading one article
| about him.
|
| Pretty obnoxious how some people so easily swim in irrationality
| to assist their own bias and maintain their cloud of mental
| comfort. The daughter of Paul Doerr for example, talking about
| how wonderful he could be (you know, when he wasn't torturing
| her); it's just wild irrationality speaking, a daughter trying to
| not recognize that her father was a monster (desperately seeking
| redeeming aspects).
| hollywood_court wrote:
| I believe more people are shot by .22 than any other caliber. I
| have no source to back that up; it's just something I've always
| heard from the LEOs in my family.
|
| From my personal experience shooting, it's the quietest of the
| rounds given the gun has a closed designed and a decent sized
| barrel. But at the same time, one of the loudest firearms I own
| is a .22 revolver simply because everything is exposed and the
| barrel is so short. It is far louder than almost any larger
| caliber firearm that I own or have shot.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Here are some older stats on common calibers. The .22 does
| make the list, but isn't close to the top. It could be
| different if you include other stats like non-fatal shootings
| and accidents.
|
| https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/GUIC.PDF
| bombcar wrote:
| I bet that's correct if you include accidental shooting - the
| .22 LR is by far the most common ammunition. And they're used
| sometimes to put down animals.
|
| But aside from execution style killings they're probably not
| that common, especially among the common criminals.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > The daughter of Paul Doerr for example, talking about how
| wonderful he could be (you know, when he wasn't torturing her);
| it's just wild irrationality speaking
|
| Or, you know, _it 's true, because people have more than one
| side?_ It's important to remember this fact about people, or
| else you'll end up doing what you're accusing these people of
| doing, which is deciding somebody is innocent because you like
| them.
|
| edit: I mean, the woman opens up her life to researchers, talks
| of her abuse by the man, and publicly concludes that her father
| is probably the Zodiac Killer, but that's still not enough for
| you not to attack her for _thinking her father was wonderful
| sometimes?_ How uncharitable.
| akira2501 wrote:
| The obvious coincidence within the coincidence. The firearms are
| now missing, under uncertain circumstances. The _one_ thing that
| could definitively prove the link and clear the mystery one way
| or the other.
|
| Also, the daughter says this would justify her life, which is a
| baffling statement. A life which apparently included drug
| problems up until at least 2007.
|
| Sorry, I think the author got baited into a family story he
| didn't fully work to understand or convey.
| kadoban wrote:
| > The _one_ thing that could definitively prove the link and
| clear the mystery one way or the other.
|
| Fingerprints should work, someone would just have to check.
| Tycho wrote:
| Someone was telling me that the killer's real identity is George
| Hodel, and Hodel's son wrote a book about it. They seemed to have
| a lot of good pieces that fit together.
| bostonpete wrote:
| A Google search suggests that person may have been talking
| about the Black Dahlia killer, not the Zodiac killer
| lizardactivist wrote:
| It does seem plausible.
|
| But I wonder why the writer didn't ask Paul Doerr's daughter for
| old letters or other hand-written documents, to compare with the
| ones sent to the papers, known to be written by the real killer.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| The article notes that the handwriting and scribbles look quite
| similar.
| netsharc wrote:
| She left home suddenly one night after almost being beaten to
| death, I doubt she has any old letters from him...
| muststopmyths wrote:
| The most interesting part (to me)is at the end. His fingerprints
| are available from the military. SFPD just has to check against
| zodiac's
| adventured wrote:
| The challenge to that scenario, is that there's no way to know
| if the bloody fingerprints are from Zodiac's hand.
|
| So if the fingerprints from the military don't match, it
| doesn't actually eliminate Doerr because we don't know for a
| fact who the fingerprints from the cab belong to (even if it
| seems most likely it's from Zodiac). For all we know Zodiac
| staged the prints in one manner or another.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| So does this partially vindicate the '80s moral panic - D&D is
| connected to ritualistic killings, it just happened decades
| earlier and had nothing to do with what the hysteria claimed it
| was doing?
| msbarnett wrote:
| Does this circumstantial suggestion that a man was involved in
| the 1960s zodiac killings partially vindicate the critics of
| Dungeons & Dragons (first published 1974)?
|
| I'm going to go with "no" and cite "the linear flow of time".
| Apocryphon wrote:
| It's a little bit like McCarthy being retroactively proved
| marginally in the ballpark because the Venona papers
| uncovered Soviet infiltration.
| msbarnett wrote:
| It strikes me as even more tenuous than that because you
| could just as easily say "ah well there were no zodiac
| murders post-D&D, so obviously role playing slakes rather
| than inflames the psychopathic mind" or something.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| To be fair, I said "connected", which could mean almost
| anything- not specifically "caused."
|
| It's interesting that if this Doerr theory is true, that
| means Zodiac really did resemble pop cultural conceptions
| of him and other Zodiac-inspired fictional killers: a
| geek, interested in nerdy fantasy hobbies once considered
| the province of social misfits. But then again, the
| occult-steeped tone of the letters and the ciphers
| themselves already gave that impression.
| poopnugget wrote:
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| When I had just moved to the Bay Area back in the mid 90's, I
| read Robert Graysmith's book on the Zodiac Killer -- just looking
| for a paperback in the grocery store to read after I got off
| work. It was a spooky and uneasy read.
|
| It surprises me that the killer could outlive justice and die
| taking the secret of his identity with him to the grave but it
| appears that is what has happened.
|
| I read Graysmith's book though a bit skeptically, assuming there
| was a lot of ginning up by the author to make for a more
| compelling read. Skeptical too of the Zodiac's claims -- I don't
| believe he committed all the murders he bragged about.
|
| Nonetheless, I couldn't avoid perceiving a sort of psychological
| wrangling that the murderer might have gone through. As though
| after a couple of simple shootings, he decides to up the game and
| try a stabbing. But it seems as though the awkward stabbing
| experience chills the killer and he perhaps even has second
| thoughts...
|
| I confess I am drawn by "Zodiac killer identified" headlines for
| decades now. At first hoping they were zeroing in on a capture,
| but later, as it becomes more likely he has died of old age, just
| out of an old curiosity.
|
| This new suspect is compelling. But the comment about "so many
| nuts in the 60's" rings true as well. This guy could have just
| been another nut, but not a murderer.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's an interesting list of facts or coincidences but we all know
| it's Ted ... Cruz.
| irrational wrote:
| Years ago, my daughter was in a college sociology class
| discussing serial killers. When the Zodiac killer came up, one
| guy said (according to my daughter, in total seriousness), "I
| thought Ted Cruz is the Zodiac killer?"
| melony wrote:
| I thought it was his old man
| smitty1e wrote:
| That was JFK
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| He was a busy man.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "She suspects that given Paul's military training, he would never
| have chosen the .22 caliber pistol, meant for small game, Zodiac
| used at Lake Herman Road"
|
| Sure, smart people aren't choosing .22s for combat, but as a
| purely offensive weapon it can be an option. The military has
| used supressed Ruger .22s for sentry elimination.
| xeromal wrote:
| .22 is a great choice too if you want to remain quiet.
| Subsconic .22 rounds + something as simple as an oil filter can
| make for a ridiculously quiet gun.
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