SHERDOG MOVIE CLUB: Week 110: Zodiac

Maybe he doesn't have a 180 I.Q. but I'm telling you, he's over 140 man.

That's all fine and well. He surely has a very high IQ based on those credentials.

But why would he report it as being 184 then?

Lack of character? Even 140 is still mind-bogglingly impressive. Does he really feel so insecure that he has to bump up 140 to 180?

Another reason could be that he is simply ignorant of how IQ testing, evaluation and correspondence to S.A.T scores work. But that's hardly a rocky mistake that a genius would do. It would counter-act the very score he's reporting.

Honestly... this whole thing kind of casts Wood in a really bad light... if he truly reported his IQ as being 184
 
That's all fine and well. He surely has a very high IQ based on those credentials.

But why would he report it as being 184 then?

Lack of character? Even 140 is still mind-bogglingly impressive. Does he really feel so insecure that he has to bump up 140 to 180?

Another reason could be that he is simply ignorant of how IQ testing, evaluation and correspondence to S.A.T scores work. But that's hardly a rocky mistake that a genius would do. It would counter-act the very score he's reporting.

Honestly... this whole thing kind of casts Wood in a really bad light... if he truly reported his IQ as being 184

Fair enough, and I can't really answer to what is going on with Woods. His reported number of 184 appears anecdotal but his S.A.T. score and scholarship to M.I.T. seem to indicate he is not of average intelligence.
 
Well, I mean, you would be guaranteed to be either be the smartest in the relationship or equal to your really smart partner. Some really smart people want to be the smarter in the relationship and will be with someone that is obviously not as smart as they are. Gives them an edge. Sometimes it could be a curse because people don't want to be in a relationship with someone who is too smart, its hard to even have meaningful conversations and trust me, you don't want Sharon Stone going psycho on you, I've seen her movies bruh, it ain't pretty.

I've never seen Salvador, I had to look that up because I couldn't even remember the film.

I'd rather be the dumbest person in the room at this point. So it sounds like a curse.

It's one of those personal faves of mine that most people don't seem to know.


But why would he report it as being 184 then?

I think there's comparisons that roughly extrapolate IQ based on standardized testing. Could be wrong though. But it would explain arriving at a score without taking the test.
 
I'd rather be the dumbest person in the room at this point. So it sounds like a curse.

It's one of those personal faves of mine that most people don't seem to know.




I think there's comparisons that roughly extrapolate IQ based on standardized testing. Could be wrong though. But it would explain arriving at a score without taking the test.

Sometimes heavy thinkers gaze into the abyss and the abyss looks back sort of thing. I think that's part of the reason we see so many high intellect people commit suicide over the years. As my dear old Momma would say, some people are too smart for their own good. I've said in other posts, one that always bothered me was the idea that a guy like Ernest Hemingway would put a gun in his mouth. I mean look at this glorious bastard.

th
th

th
th
th


If a man as well lived and well traveled as he can end up in suicide, it puts a little worry in me because it means no matter how long you live, the world doesn't stop being hard.
 
Remember, that it has to be a film that all of us can acquire and actually see. There was one week were a film won that was so rare that only a single club-member managed to actually procure a copy.:D (good old chickenluver with his black-belt film-hunting skills)

I am pretty sure it is available on I tunes. I'll check in with her before I nominate it to be sure it is accessible :)
 
I think the most natural conclusion at this point is to question the validity of those IQ tests. I highly doubt any of those actors have the math skills to sit around and work on string theory on their day off. 184 in IQ is so outrageously high that is almost certainly has to be false.

My understanding of IQ tests is that they measure memory and processing speed. So someone who can access vast information, and synthesize it to quickly see commonalities, differences, causations and corrolations will score high. The test says nothing about their ability to create something new with this knowledge....It is interesting because IQ tests appear to be based on what computers do really well, manipulate information in the search for patterns.
 
My understanding of IQ tests is that they measure memory and processing speed. So someone who can access vast information, and synthesize it to quickly see commonalities, differences, causations and corrolations will score high. The test says nothing about their ability to create something new with this knowledge....It is interesting because IQ tests appear to be based on what computers do really well, manipulate information in the search for patterns.

It's also the ability to recognize patterns. I'd wager it also reflects problem-solving. People are welcome to scoff, because they know somebody with some other type of intelligence, but...

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120329142035.htm
https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2015/09/16/is-iq-a-predictor-of-success/#7569d7b43604
 
If a man as well lived and well traveled as he can end up in suicide, it puts a little worry in me because it means no matter how long you live, the world doesn't stop being hard.


Sometimes heavy thinkers gaze into the abyss and the abyss looks back sort of thing. I think that's part of the reason we see so many high intellect people commit suicide over the years. As my dear old Momma would say, some people are too smart for their own good. I've said in other posts, one that always bothered me was the idea that a guy like Ernest Hemingway would put a gun in his mouth. I mean look at this glorious bastard.

th
th

th
th
th


If a man as well lived and well traveled as he can end up in suicide, it puts a little worry in me because it means no matter how long you live, the world doesn't stop being hard.

chef-anthony-bourdain-is-photographed-in-june-2003-holding-up-a-at-picture-id530072120


p014n8mc.jpg


35210b58c357d2bef12ef5cac2f05e2a.jpg
anthonybourdainFB.0.0.jpg


b0585b56eee8699dd747745b27370351.jpg
 
@MusterX

Maybe this captures your interest. Sent to the SF Chronicle.

https://www.nytimes.com/1995/06/29/...tens-blast-then-calls-the-scheme-a-prank.html

...threatened to blow up an airliner flying out of Los Angeles International Airport within six days.

The threat, made in a letter received on Tuesday by The San Francisco Chronicle,

But in a suspicious piece of mail sent to The New York Times, the suspect said the whole thing was a hoax. That piece of mail was received by The Times today at its New York office and turned over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which opened it and authenticated it late tonight.

"Since the public has a short memory, we decided to play one last prank to remind them who we are," the letter said. "But, no, we haven't tried to plant a bomb on an airline (recently)."

One last prank? Sending a letter to a San Fran paper threatening to bomb an airport in LA?

...the final Zodiac letter? :eek::D
 
do you need to be a racist to join?
 
do you need to be a racist to join?

Only towards that loathsome, foul-minded, wretched race of mongrelized swamp-spawn known as the hated Danish.

So... uhhh... was that a joke or are you actually interested in joining?:D
 
Only towards that loathsome, foul-minded, wretched race of mongrelized swamp-spawn known as the hated Danish.

So... uhhh... was that a joke or are you actually interested in joining?:D

He doesn't want to join, he just thought it would be cute to stop in and say @shadow_priest_x is a racist.
 
@MusterX

Maybe this captures your interest. Sent to the SF Chronicle.

https://www.nytimes.com/1995/06/29/...tens-blast-then-calls-the-scheme-a-prank.html





One last prank? Sending a letter to a San Fran paper threatening to bomb an airport in LA?

...the final Zodiac letter? :eek::D

tumblr_mdhevepSaf1riso5no2_400.gif


Damn, an article from 1995. The part that says "we are" is what reminds me of the Zodiac because he would say "we" didn't he, rather than I?

"Since the public has a short memory, we decided to play one last prank to remind them who we are," the letter said.

The return address on the letter is like a signature that authenticates it really was the Unabomber.

Wood, 549 Wood Street, Woodlake, Calif.

Also the fact that the letters were sent to the New York Times is very Zodiac, but Zodiac was a shooter, not a bomber. The Unabomber was the bomber. Someone needs to tell Ted to stop mixing up his serial killer personas. I don't know why this excerpt is funny to me but the end where it says, "derp turns out it was just a radio", I can't help but chuckle.

Passengers were evacuated from an already-landed United Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia, after crew members found a transistor radio in the rear of the Boeing 747 jet and suspected it might contain a bomb. It turned out to be simply a radio.

Beyond that, the time constraint of six days also sounds Zodiac, but, the terrorist group FC = Unabomber territory. Seems like this strengthens the case, even if only anecdotally, that Ted = Zodiac. I assume the lengthy manuscript was a reference to Ted writing a manifesto?

The writer said he wanted to tell his story and was working on an article of 29,000 to 37,000 words "that we want to have published.

This passage is the most chilling to me though. Its like a Zodiac smoke alarm.

"A bomb package that we mailed to computer scientist Patrick Fischer injured his secretary when she opened it. We certainly regret that. And when we were young and comparatively reckless we were much more careless in selecting targets that than we are now."
 
Oh Zodiac film you, two hour and forty minute run time up my spine, like a slow moving street sweeper at 3a.m.

The Zodiac is never one that really fascinated me because he was so, vanilla. He's like one of the original serial killers we knew about in the modern era and he benefited greatly from less than spectacular detective work and forensics. He was never particularly morbid or shocking like many of the ones that came after him. Someone like Ted Bendy wanted to kill because it was gratifying to him whereas the Zodiac seemed to be gratified not by the killed as much as by the games he played with the media and police.

He was also short lived compared to someone like the Green River killer who killed for decades before finally being brought to justice. Zodiac's crimes probably only spanned a year or two and then he stopped which is really weird because serial killers can't stop, its a compulsion. This is a piece of evidence that counts against Arthur Leigh Allen. He went to prison for other crimes and got out in 4 years but there were no more murders or letters from the Zodiac while he was in prison from 1974-1977.

If you put a pair of horn-rimmed glasses on him he would look pretty close to the composite sketch as well. The Zodiac claimed he used a disguise while he was killing.

th


I don't know how much was true in the film concerning the maids discussion with the Zodiac about his birthday being December 18th but Arthur Leigh Allen was indeed born on the 18th of December.

th


The Zodiac wasn't this depraved psycho though, not like we know now with guys like Dahmer. He wasn't into having sex with the bodies that I know of, not into cannibalism, and didn't save the body parts. In fact, even his method of killing seems very anti-serial killer because he mostly used a gun and the vast majority of serial killers are more hands on than a gun allows. I'm sure some people may have suspected the Son of Sam killer as being the Zodiac when he began shooting people in 1976.

Arthur Leigh Allen died of a heart attack and died in 1992 and he was only linked to the 7 that were attacked in 1968-69. He was suspected of killing as many as 20-28 and he claimed to have killed 37. The movie centered on the prime suspect Arthur Leigh Allen although with techniques pioneered later he was cleared due to DNA evidence, the partial print on the taxi, and handwriting analysis. Thing is, you can't trust their collecting methods in 1968-69. The DNA could have been anyone's, the partial print on the taxi also could have been anyone's, a detective, someone that walked up to the cab and looked in before the police arrived, who knows, and hand writing analysis is notoriously unreliable which is why nobody goes to jail based just on handwriting alone. It would have to match perfectly.

One of the most damning bits of evidence against Arthur Leigh Allen is that in 1992, Mike Mageau picked him in a line up and said that is the guy that shot me. Mageau was played by Jimmi Simpson in the film.

th


th
th


The couple that was first killed in the film was Mike Mageau and Darlene Ferrin which was actually the second set of murders in real life.

th



th
th


Darlene was killed but Mike survived and picked out Arthur Leigh Allen as his assailant. Mageau also described a brown Corvair at the Blue Rock Springs scene. Allen's friend, Philip, owned a brown Corvair that Allen was allowed to use. An unidentified man named "Lee" was known to associate with Ferrin, shown above, and Allen frequently went by his middle name Leigh. So there was all this circumstantial evidence against Allen but he gets cleared due to the much later DNA test. The dude even wore a watch that said Zodiac on it.

Zodiac could’ve killed way more people, though,we just don’t know. Lots of serial killers will change their M.O. just because they want to experiment. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he’d killed way more people than what we think. For all we know he got caught for different murders, never tied to the Zodiac crimes. It’s possible he kept killing but stopped writing to the police. Or maybe he had already killed a lot and only stated writing near the end of his ‘career’. People think serial killers don’t stop but they do stop. Look at EARONS/GSK for example. It only took 12+ murders, 50+ rapes and nearly 200 burglaries but they do stop eventually.

Zodiac is interesting to me. Never caught, got the attention of everybody, etc,but he was a ghost. He probably gave them everything they needed to catch him but he still stayed a little ahead of them. He was not a dumb person,that’s for sure. He’s lucky he never left a good DNA sample, though. Very lucky. We’ll never know who the Zodiac was. He got away.

Other than that,I hope GSK gives interviews like other serial killers have. That stuff interests me.
 
Zodiac could’ve killed way more people, though,we just don’t know. Lots of serial killers will change their M.O. just because they want to experiment. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he’d killed way more people than what we think. For all we know he got caught for different murders, never tied to the Zodiac crimes. It’s possible he kept killing but stopped writing to the police. Or maybe he had already killed a lot and only stated writing near the end of his ‘career’. People think serial killers don’t stop but they do stop. Look at EARONS/GSK for example. It only took 12+ murders, 50+ rapes and nearly 200 burglaries but they do stop eventually.

Zodiac is interesting to me. Never caught, got the attention of everybody, etc,but he was a ghost. He probably gave them everything they needed to catch him but he still stayed a little ahead of them. He was not a dumb person,that’s for sure. He’s lucky he never left a good DNA sample, though. Very lucky. We’ll never know who the Zodiac was. He got away.

Other than that,I hope GSK gives interviews like other serial killers have. That stuff interests me.

Well, eventually they stop if they don't get caught and then get old enough that they can't "safely" do it anymore. That was the case with the original Nightstalker. Zodiac claimed to have killed 37 people. We just have no way of confirming. If you read through this thread, which would be a pretty daunting task due to the links and information that would have to be combed through, there is a case to be made that the Zodiac, the Tylenol killer, and the Unabomber were all the same person. Ted Kaczynski. In fact, more than just a case, its a strong case IMO.
 
The part that says "we are" is what reminds me of the Zodiac because he would say "we" didn't he, rather than I?

Yeah, not sure on that one.

Also the fact that the letters were sent to the New York Times is very Zodiac, but Zodiac was a shooter, not a bomber.

Zodiac wanted to be a bomber. He made more than one bomb threat and even sent a diagram of one. Unabomber could be seen as less of a change and more of an evolution as his skills developed. It took Ted multiple efforts to build a bomb that actually killed someone.
 
Yeah, not sure on that one.

Zodiac wanted to be a bomber. He made more than one bomb threat and even sent a diagram of one. Unabomber could be seen as less of a change and more of an evolution as his skills developed. It took Ted multiple efforts to build a bomb that actually killed someone.

He always said “I”, not “we”, so that’s cleared up. For all we know it was more than one person, though. One person or more writing letters, someone doing the killings, etc. I think it was one guy that did it. Survivors talk about one guy and have similar descriptions of him (Hartnell and Mageau describe a man of very similar appearance in terms of height and weight).

I don’t believe it was Kaczynski. It’s interesting that many of Ted’s bombs showed up in areas to do with wood, like street names and such (also put wood in his bombs), whereas Zodiac was somehow related to water (streets, areas with body of water, etc). And yes, he made a few bomb threats and proved he can make a bomb with the diagram.

I don’t believe Arthur Leigh Allen was Zodiac either, but there’s definitely some interesting circumstancial evidence pointing to him. But it’s like that with quite a few suspects. Richard Gaikowski is another guy with a lot of evidence pointing his way, along with the police dispatcher for one of the calls saying it was his voice on the other end of the line when he called in the assaults/murders.

With GSK being caught, they’re going to try a similar DNA test or whatever to hopefully get Zodiac but I don’t see them getting him. He left very little evidence. Only a little bit of saliva on the envelopes but is there even enough for a good DNA profile? It’s almost 50 years old now and it’s not like they have semen like they did with GSK. Also the fingerprints on the cab (his last confirmed killing), those could be almost anybody’s.

According to one of Zodiacs letters, he said they don’t have his prints because he wears a few coats of airplane glue on his fingers/hands, covering his finger prints perfectly. So even if they did find his prints in the cab or one of his letters (palm prints and some of the index finger I think on one of his letters was retrieved), it might just be a waste of time since the little grooves of the print or whatever are covered.

If the DNA from the letters doesn’t get anything, then Zodiac will never be caught. This is literally their only hope in hell of identifying this guy and I honestly don’t see it happening.

/rant
 
If the DNA from the letters doesn’t get anything, then Zodiac will never be caught. This is literally their only hope in hell of identifying this guy and I honestly don’t see it happening.

Agreed. And it seems there's little hope of that.

What do you think of Ross Sullivan as a suspect?
 
Agreed. And it seems there's little hope of that.

What do you think of Ross Sullivan as a suspect?

I don’t think it’s him either. At least if we take the letters seriously, he doesn’t actually look like the sketch. Apparently he disguised himself that way so if he’s seen in public it throws the police and other eyewitnesses off. Zodiac is also said to have brown hair, how dark I don’t know but Sullivan’s looks more blond to me. It’s said the guy the sketch is based on had brown hair with a reddish tint to it, and it looks like Sullivan could have that. Sullivan’s hair is also short whereas Zodiac’s (according to Hartnell) was long enough to cover his forehead (hair was seen around the eye holes of the hood he wore). Some people’s hair looks darker when it’s longer/more layers than when it’s short, too, you know what I mean?

Now obviously you can easily cut your hair or wear a wig, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he did something like this. Maybe grow his hair when he went out to kill and cut it after to change his appearance to make the description seem off (don’t think so, though). Zodiac never said the sketch wasn’t him. He admitted the cops drove right past him and talked to him asking if he’d seen anyone. So the description is accurate, but apparently not how he actually looks. Sullivan does look similar to the sketch, studied some cryptography, went to college in Riverside in ‘66 (same year and place Zodiac first killed, not official I don’t think but it was clearly him for fuck’s sake), lived in Northern Cali during the rest of the murders.

So yes, he’s in the right areas and roughly matches the description, but there’s a few small things I think leads the case away from him. If it was him, I believe the cops who saw the guy the sketch was made after would’ve identified him IMO. At least you’d think so. It’s possible Sullivan actually died in 1977 because there’s a headstone in a cemetery with his name in Santa Cruz. If that’s true (that he died in ‘77) then who sent the 1990 Christmas letter? For all we know it wasn’t him, though.

As of right now I’m really thinking it could’ve been Gaikowski. I’d explain why but I think this is long enough, lol. This case is insane.
 
I don’t think it’s him either. At least if we take the letters seriously, he doesn’t actually look like the sketch. Apparently he disguised himself that way so if he’s seen in public it throws the police and other eyewitnesses off. Zodiac is also said to have brown hair, how dark I don’t know but Sullivan’s looks more blond to me. It’s said the guy the sketch is based on had brown hair with a reddish tint to it, and it looks like Sullivan could have that. Sullivan’s hair is also short whereas Zodiac’s (according to Hartnell) was long enough to cover his forehead (hair was seen around the eye holes of the hood he wore). Some people’s hair looks darker when it’s longer/more layers than when it’s short, too, you know what I mean?

Now obviously you can easily cut your hair or wear a wig, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he did something like this. Maybe grow his hair when he went out to kill and cut it after to change his appearance to make the description seem off (don’t think so, though). Zodiac never said the sketch wasn’t him. He admitted the cops drove right past him and talked to him asking if he’d seen anyone. So the description is accurate, but apparently not how he actually looks. Sullivan does look similar to the sketch, studied some cryptography, went to college in Riverside in ‘66 (same year and place Zodiac first killed, not official I don’t think but it was clearly him for fuck’s sake), lived in Northern Cali during the rest of the murders.

So yes, he’s in the right areas and roughly matches the description, but there’s a few small things I think leads the case away from him. If it was him, I believe the cops who saw the guy the sketch was made after would’ve identified him IMO. At least you’d think so. It’s possible Sullivan actually died in 1977 because there’s a headstone in a cemetery with his name in Santa Cruz. If that’s true (that he died in ‘77) then who sent the 1990 Christmas letter? For all we know it wasn’t him, though.

As of right now I’m really thinking it could’ve been Gaikowski. I’d explain why but I think this is long enough, lol. This case is insane.

I'm not sure how much stock I place in the sketches. The Unabomber sketch looks nothing at all like Ted to me. But who knows. What I like about Sullivan is he seems like a good suspect on the Riverside case. So if we believe that was Zodiac then he's one of the few with any ties to the college there. It is my understanding he did die in 1977 and I skeptical of Zodiac correspondence as the years went on.

I never looked all that closely at Gaikowski. Maybe I'll do that this week.
 
Back
Top