The Essence of a Haunting

I introduce this autumn season with an excerpt from my upcoming Amityville Horror book. . . .We will deal more with this form of quest in the future, so I think it best to lay a foundation for interpretation.

 

“All hauntings are subjective. That is why they are so frightening. They are the cumulative result of the interpretation of events the participants feel are unusual; the more unusual the more they will be interpreted as naturally impossible. There can be no other interpretation to the naturally impossible but to believe that it is supernaturally possible— to be explicit, an intelligence is behind them. With this we have now tread into the theory of the supernatural as the explanation.

If true hauntings were like their movie personas there would be little to fear. If ghosts were easy to see moving about a home in their routine, they would soon be nothing more than a botheration. If Sir Percy carried his head under his arm nightly while moaning in the passageways one would grow tired of him. There would be no fear. It would simply get to be too much. We’d pack our traps and move out in a huff. Fear would long have been vanquished and replaced by irk at the inconvenience of it all.

An unseen enemy or potential enemy is what we fear. Fear is in the present. It can be dealt with. Anxiety, however, is over the future. It grows more intense. We do not fear what we do not know as much as we fear what might possibly be. Fear of what is will eventually subside. But fear of what is to come is what truly haunts us.

By no means am I minimizing a haunting. Nor is this an endorsement that hauntings are caused by supernatural forces. I am underscoring that the interpretation of the effect and not the cause is the source of the haunting within us. Whether the effect was set in motion by an unknown natural phenomenon or, indeed, by a supernatural entity, there is no difference. We are left to interpret otherwise ambiguous but abnormal effects. And it will be our interpretation that sets us on edge.

Knowledge builds upon knowledge. In all things, data adds to the interpretation of more data. The human mind cannot stop the process. A few strange sounds in an old house might be unnerving, but when added to yet more unexplained events— cupboards found open, doors that slam on their own— and we begin to ponder and try to add it up. Mixed with our personality, our conclusions will drive us to action.”

I believe it is essential to understand the subjective nature of all true hauntings because the essence of the haunting is within us. It is not possible to understand such famous cases as the Amityville Horror otherwise. Nor is it possible to truly investigate a “haunted house” if one is looking for overt external stimuli.

The current case of The Westfield Watcher is an excellent example and a study of it will impose upon all who partake of it what the true nature of a haunting is like upon those who experience it.

The case is not a supernatural one, of course. The “entity” in this case is flesh and blood, but he/she is using the principals of a haunting coupled with those attributes of terror only a stalker can impose upon us. By writing odd and disquieting letters to the new owners of 657 Boulevard in Westfield, New Jersey, indicating that he “watches” the house and is perpetually entrusted to do so, The Watcher has scared the family out of their large Dutch colonial and made it certain no one will want to buy it.

The writer has carefully thought out their gambol of fear. The family children have been referred to as “young blood.” There is no overt statement of harm (at least that we know of), but The Watcher craftily worded the statement: asking if they have filled the house with “young blood” like he had requested.

The Watcher claims to be the third in his line to watch the house. His grandfather watched it, then in the 1960s his father took over the duties, and now this present watcher is obliged to do so.

Naturally, the letters coupled with the inference The Watcher will continue to stalk the house has driven the family into a financially difficult situation. They don’t know if the writer intends to visit the house. No one wants to go to sleep thinking they should awake to see a madman standing over their bed. The worst thing is the family has children.  Put yourself in their situation. No one knows where a stalker may strike. Your children could be walking to the corner to catch the bus. This madman could come to school and persuade the kids to leave with him.

There are any number of scenarios. We need not hear from the parents, Derek and Maria Broaddus, in person to know what must be going through their minds. Fear tortures. The probability that this is just a letter-writing crank doesn’t assuage the fears I’m sure. Who really knows? And, once again, terror lies in the anticipation, not in the mournful aftermath.

The Watcher was thought to have been a crank who only briefly terrorized the family back in late 2014 to early 2015, when he or she wrote 3 letters of such a “disturbing” nature the family became paranoid. Then it was learned that a few days before closing the deal, the previous couple had received a letter, the nature of which we do not know. A lawsuit is ongoing between the two families.

In the long history of the old home it has been passed along to the next family for $1. This is, of course, until the Woods bought it. They had no issues until they sold it to the present family, the Broadduses. It was they who received a latter a few days before closing the deal, and they didn’t think anything of it.

Vacant and quiet. The “for sale” sign is dwarfed by the ancient trees. It’s a “no takers acres” because of the bizarre and mysterious “Watcher.”   

The letters to the Broadduses are, however, not the stuff one forgets. And now they are not confined to a few years ago. At the beginning of this year The Watcher wrote again.  The letter’s contents are withheld, but it is worse and more “disturbing” than the previous letters. The Broadduses can’t sell the property. They have rented it, but they want to destroy this old “stigmatized” house and the Planning Board won’t let them.

The only solution, of course, is to expose The Watcher– discover who this terrorizing crank is. The stigma is gone. No one need fear buying the house and thinking this jacket job will write more letters or one day pop up in the basement.

The clues are there that The Watcher knows the odd history of the house and how it was passed along. From what has been released, The Watcher knows not to make overt threats, reflecting the Watcher’s understanding of the legal complications should they be exposed. The Watcher has also worded things in such a manner that the Broadduses are not the object of his attention. Rather, it is the house. Thus he has stigmatized the property and not the family. But he has also made it impossible for the family to sell the house. Thus it seems that perhaps the family is the object of The Watcher.

Some think it could be an old real estate enemy of the family. But it may be a member of one of the previous families that didn’t care about the rumors the Broadduses were going to do a lot of renovation to the old house. The Watcher has even asked if they have found something in the “walls” of the house.

I will go over the letters in more detail in following posts to see if this does not help us expose this very calculating suburban terrorist of Anywhere USA.

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Since 1990 Gian J. Quasar has investigated a broad range of mysterious subjects, from strange disappearances to serial murders, earning in that time the unique distinction of being likened to “the real life Kolchak.” However, he is much more at home with being called The Quester or Q Man. “He’s bloody eccentric, an historian with no qualifications who sticks his nose into affairs and gets results.” He is the author of several books, one of which inspired a Resolution in Congress.

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The Westfield Watcher Case– Again

It was more website redesign that caused me to take down the pages on the Case of the Westfield Watcher than the lawsuit threats. I was threatened repeatedly with lawsuit over the article on my site, the claim being I infringed on copyright of a photograph. The haunting case, though it is on the backburner of the topic of strange and unique true crime incidents, obviously has left an indelible mark on my mind.

It’s a case that can and should be solved. I grew up in an old home, and the thought of this beautiful old Dutch colonial in New Jersey being destroyed is terrible. And the new owners (since 2014) have wanted to do that in order to build two different homes on the property and then dump it. That’s how bad they want out of the property.

The case is unique, of course, because it combines the elements of crime– a stalker writing disturbing letters– and a haunting; there is something within the house and a part of its strange past that the “Watcher” is a part of. The Watcher indicated he had watched the house, knew who was in what bedrooms, and even called the new owners’ children “young blood.”  Tests on the letters later uncovered a woman’s DNA, but not the new owner’s wife.

The letters are, in fact, not a stunt by the new owners. This year, soon after renters moved into the white elephant, a new letter arrived, more disturbing than the others. The Watcher knows when new people move in. He or she remains silent until then. “It” does not want the house remodeled, let alone destroyed. The Westfield Planning Board has refused to let the owners demolish the old house.

The Woods, who sold the house to the Broadduses in 2014, were the first to receive a letter, just before moving. They insisted it wasn’t threatening. The Broadduses believe they should have been told a stalker came with the house. They sued the Woods. Now the renters have received a letter. The Watcher is faithful to “its” claims. He or She watches the house. Their stalking intent is against those therein. It does not appear directed at any family, just those in the house at a given time.

I will recap and update the case in my next blog post.

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Since 1990 Gian J. Quasar has investigated a broad range of mysterious subjects, from strange disappearances to serial murders, earning in that time the unique distinction of being likened to “the real life Kolchak.” However, he is much more at home with being called The Quester or Q Man. “He’s bloody eccentric, an historian with no qualifications who sticks his nose into affairs and gets results.” He is the author of several books, one of which inspired a Resolution in Congress.

The New Antiestablishment Movement: What lurks in dark shadows?

Unfortunately,  due to all that I am up to in my hobby (being the questing Q-Man) and in real, boring life, I have not been able to update Q Files with sections reflecting the cases I am organizing in True Crime and Cold Case. I express myself here, in the less permanent and artsy world of my blok.

One period in time I am particularly interested in– the antiestablishment movement. It is the inseparable background to the ZODIAC Killer’s crime spree and others, the nuances in each intimately inspired by it. The crimes and seasons inexorably linked to it are fascinating . . . and I think that similar outcroppings from the new antiestablishment movement is something that modern law enforcement must brace themselves for, but not in terms of anti-riot but in terms of Homicide investigation.

Riot breaks out in Los Angeles 1970 after flag burning started at the Brown Power protests.

 

The late 1960s and 1970s were an edgy time. Society was disturbed by the massive movement of the counterculture. It was seen in daily life. It was seen in “folk” festivals like the Altamont and Woodstock. The civil rights movement was becoming more heated, especially after Martin Luther King Jr had been assassinated. Black power and brown power (Hispanic) rallies intensified. There were riots. Flag burning. Neo Nazis (yes, they’ve been around a long time) came out and paraded too, fully dressed in their Nuremburg rally uniforms.

A clip from Robert Hendrickson’s film Inside the Manson Gang. The filmmaker was able to record the tumultuous 1970 as the backdrop to Manson’s alarming murder rampage.

 

Charles Manson both believed in Helter Skelter and tried to manipulate its advent. His Tate/La Bianca murders inspired dread in Los Angeles, and showed how the tumultuous social times could incubate more demented counter-cults.  What was essential to Helter Skelter was attacking the “establishment” — wealthy people whose murders would get lots of media attention.

The colorful flamboyance of the counterculture of the late 1960s transposed into the grim urban reality of the early to mid-1970s. In this era we saw unusual crime sprees– chic urban guerillas like The Symbionese Liberation Army, the bizarre Zebra Killings,  and the advent of some of the most resourceful serial killers there have been.

Patty Hearst poses with the symbol of SLA. 

 

Anchored by the stalwart Great Generation, the nation survived, changing but intact. The establishment was solid. It was united in trying to understand the counterculture. It disapproved. Some delighted in certain philosophic issues it brought forward, but no one tried to manipulate it for political upheaval. There was too much upheaval coming to the fore anyway, all an outcropping of the “antiestablishment” attitude.  By the 1970s some of the looser morals and ideas “counterculture” had gestated were being embraced by a broader range of established society, but people were growing tired of the ghastly crime waves and riots.

The flower power of the 1960s was long gone and racial and political tensions replaced it. Along with this, of course, we began to wonder on the motive. It was protest for the sake of protest. It was robbing banks in the name of liberation. We were sure the “commies” were behind it all. Protesting got old, and a well known KGO radio host (San Francisco) finally condemned an anti-nuke protest at 3 Mile Island as “rent-a-mob.” Sound familiar today? The parallels are all over the place.

Flower power, music, folk festivals, ebbed to the dark world of political and social urban tensions. In like manner today,the peaceful “Occupy” movement of near a decade ago has long ebbed to  . . . a remarkable version of the 1970s, only darker and without any preaching of Aquarius.

In the 1970s thrill killers also got emboldened. The Sonoma Co-ed Killer was a horrid sadist of the early 1970s. Bundy would arise. Gacy was filling the floorboards of his house with victims. There were others, of course.

Gacy posed with Rosalind Carter for a political picture. One of the members of Antifa arrested at Berkeley for packing heat had posed with Hillary Clinton. It wasn’t Rosalind Carter’s fault a serial killer posed with her. Nor is it Hillary Clinton’s fault a terrorist posed with her. It reveals that both terrorists and killers can rub shoulders with the light of day before dawning their evil alter egos.

Today, we are well within this new antiestablishment movement.  It is and it is not like the original. There is no eastern mysticism and philosophy driving it. In fact, diversity doesn’t drive it. It is largely political, driven by what are called anarcho-communists (Antifa) who are now believed to be in the pay of a real life Ernst Stavro Blofeld, James Bond’s ultimate nemesis,  whose goal is to disrupt and destroy the USA. One other thing has been established– our never-ending Carthage– the Russians– have been proven to have backed online ads whose purpose is to cause social divisions in the country.  This is no small thing. The ads inspire a pious element within a generation raised without humor. There was no 25 years of “political correctness” hawking on the Baby Boomer generation. This generation has learned to react to words based on how the internet reacts to their usage.  Intolerance rather than purpose motivates these protestors.

Everybody is a fascist, for instance. Some Simple Simon online defenses of Antifa note that it stands for “anti-Fascist” and thus they must be good people because the real fascists were bad people. Thus the arguments glibly overlook that communists were antifascists and they butchered more people than the Nazis.  And with Antifa everyone else is a fascist. One scribbled: “The Liberals will get the bullet too.”

I am fascinated by Antifa, not for what they are but for what their existence represents in an the milestones of an “antiestablishment” movement. My little Antifula! They are the tip of a Thug-like iceberg. Within the dark recesses, there is something else festering, even more pious and illiterate than the bulk.

The political killers. The thrill killers.

The milestones are already in place. Racial tensions are at their highest since the late 1960s. Protests not only returned with the “Occupy movement,” they are now turning violent in the hands of Antifa. But it is not anti-war. Nor is there an  “average” protestor or diverse protests like back in the original antiestablishment. Antifa is it, and they are a violent crowd. With their pious, brute minds they are the antithesis of the original counterculture flower children. They burn signs reading “Free Speech” and they try some very simple publicity stunts– shields that read “No Hate” which they then use to beat others. After they are crushed, from within them there is room for teh beginning of a truly vile Manson type of cult or something far worse than the Symbionese Liberation Army.

One of the most fascinating and early symbols– the gunsight symbol (also used by the Zodiac Killer) adjusted with the “A” for Antifa. This was lettered onto the limo at the Trump inauguration– Antifa’s first big protest. They were ready awfully fast.

So much is similar today to 50 years ago, but the “peace” element isn’t there. They do not protest a war. Antifa protests people holding a different political view. Antifa are not one of several protests. They are it. They are a violent incarnation of the bizarre “political correctness” that has been stifling expression since the 1990s.  They carry weapons in order to eliminate guest speakers and they riot in order to keep others from hearing another point of view. They are the product of a lot of indulgence, decades of it. They have been allowed to make up their own meaning to words, and today they have labeled all but themselves the bad guys.

Neo-Nazis essentially don’t even really exist anymore. They are a strange outcropping of biker culture– ghastly rednecks with tattoos and redneck philosophy. Basically, they deserve the distinction of being Eric von Zipper and his Rat Pack. Antifa butt heads with them once. Now anybody with a different protest agenda is listed as a Neo Nazi.

Watching Robert Hendrickson’s two films– Manson (1973) and Inside the Manson Gang (2007) are essential to understanding what America was like 1970, and from this to see how similar and yet darker this current antiestablishment movement is. He filmed American parades, the Brown berets in charge of a Mexican-American protest in LA, gays marching with signs in protest of being beaten and, as expected, genuine Neo-Nazis, a pathetic sideshow to the rest.

The “Brown is Beautiful Protest, Los Angeles, 1970.

Anti Nixon protests outside the courthouse where Charles Manson was to appear. Familiar concepts, no?   

Gays protesting being beaten, 1970.

Then Neo-Nazi’s protesting the times, 1970.

The problem today is that Antifa would attack them all as “fascists.” It kinda ruins the diversity and humor of many of the protests. There is, in fact, little chance at the diversity of opinion because Antifa is there, hooded and with black body armor and masks. The nation was prosperous 50 years ago, but the Great Recession helped incubate Antifa and its communist ideology to destroy wealth. One even expressed it would be better to live in Stalin’s Russia. You can’t find a Russian communist who would admit to that. The nation is worried about the lack of trust created by the banking and housing collapse 10 years ago. Antifa is part of the result, and they have made sure this is a back and white argument between them and all others.

As we saw 50 years ago, when edginess dominates a society even the criminal element becomes far more emboldened. What should we expect today? Manson, The ZODIAC, Zebra, SLA, all sought to exploit terror. What should we expect from serial killers? We should expect some to exploit the fear of the times and become more ingenious. This supposition is not based on using only the antiestablishment movement as a guide. The later part of the 1880s was a very tumultuous time in London socially. In 1888, Jack the Ripper took advantage of it by slaying drabs in Whitechapel and then trying to exacerbate the crime spree into anti-Semitic riots.

We are in a twisted, far more violent and less philosophic Orwellian era, and we should brace ourselves for what is festering in dark shadows. Antifa dominates the public protests because they will attack anyone else protesting. But there is much unrest out there, and this is a violent and far more complex mix of dissatisfaction than 50 years ago.

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Since 1990 Gian J. Quasar has investigated a broad range of mysterious subjects, from strange disappearances to serial murders, earning in that time the unique distinction of being likened to “the real life Kolchak.” However, he is much more at home with being called The Quester or Q Man. “He’s bloody eccentric, an historian with no qualifications who sticks his nose into affairs and gets results.” He is the author of several books, one of which inspired a Resolution in Congress.

EAR/ONS– By the Hair

Because he was so prolific in his prowling, stalking and attacking, and yet remained so phantom-like we have developed an understandable obsession with what EAR/ONS truly looked like at any given time in his long crime spree. Most of the composites show a “suspicious person” seen in the neighborhood. This could truly be anybody. Some show shoulder length hair. Most show shorter hair. When it comes to some of his features we can only speculate, but when it comes to his hair we can make some deductions.

We can look outside of composites at a few clues. Old cars were associated with someone stalking the respective neighborhoods where EAR would strike. In the case of Attack 40 on Montclair Place (Oct 28, 1978), the occupant of a car cruising the San Ramon cul-de-sac was seen to have short hair. This fit with an odd clue that police detectives uncovered at the scene of Attack 38 (Oct. 7, 1938)– a security guard’s badge was found dropped on the neighbor’s lawn. Did EAR drop this badge by mistake?  Did he use it as a cover, lest he be seen and stopped? No one with long hair could get away with claiming he was a security guard.

On May 16, 1979, in a neighborhood perfect for an EAR attack (Danville), a woman came in from her garage (where she was doing laundry) and found a jogger walking through her living room. He was dressed in the usual jogging outfit and wore a black Navy skullcap. He bolted. There is no mention he had any noticeably long hair.

Richard Shelby writes of the prowler seen at El Capitan and Allegheny (just north of the previous witness sighting) in Danville the night of the attack on #46 (June 11, 1979). The description is a little radical to the description of EAR in height, but then it was nighttime. But Shelby notes that the hair on the prowler came to the nape of the neck– so not even midline.

In the Davis Co-Ed attack (#34) on June 7, 1978, recall that the victim saw him from behind and noted that the tag of his T-shirt was showing, indicating he had put his T-shirt on wrong-side-out. The stocking he wore over his head came to the nape of his neck. She did not note long hair. He also wore the skullcap on top– another great way to hide his hair color, which could show through the stocking.

Earlier sketches and police kit composites overwhelmingly show a young man with short to relatively short hair and a somewhat long face. Other than that EAR really has no other distinguishing features. He was a rather bland looking young man. No excessively large nose protruded from the ski masks. His eyes were given various colors by victims. He always disguised his voice.

In sum, EAR’s hair seemed to be short, parted on the right, and it grew out to the center of his neck. He liked the night and he may have masqueraded as a security guard, which required relatively short hair.

Today, this does help a bit, even though it is 40 years on now. It tells us a bit about him back then, and it tells us into what kind of society he could transpose during the day when finished with his night prowlings. It may even help jog people’s memory for back then. I think EAR/ONS was clever enough that he knew he had to look like the unsuspected lest he be stopped or seen when scouting a neighborhood. This means no long hair. This means nothing that should alert people’s suspicion. It obviously worked. For 40 years he has remained the unsuspected.

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Since 1990 Gian J. Quasar has investigated a broad range of mysterious subjects, from strange disappearances to serial murders, earning in that time the unique distinction of being likened to “the real life Kolchak.” However, he is much more at home with being called The Quester or Q Man. “He’s bloody eccentric, an historian with no qualifications who sticks his nose into affairs and gets results.” He is the author of several books, one of which inspired a Resolution in Congress.

EAR/ONS and the DRAGNET

Right now, as we speak, a huge dragnet is underway. School records, pertaining to males over a certain period of public school attendance, are being pulled and compared to custody records during EAR’s missing 5 years– 1981-1986.

I know of no such massive dragnet in history, especially one so complicated as going back some 50 years in time to school records and then back over 30 years in time for prison records.

I have my own slice of the EAR pie, as you all know. I pursue my own clique of POIs, central to which is RAP, and my information is within the official pipeline. But I thought it wise to mention the above for the readers at hand. I mention only broad generalities, but I think since so many follow the case now it is prudent to remind people that the greater law enforcement apparatus is not pursuing EAR/ONS in the usual manner.

Such a massive dragnet that is underway is unique in history. It is a proactive and resourceful investigation and process of elimination.

All those seriously interested in this case should rest easy that there is real investigation underway from many approaches. No one wants the real life Michael Myers to escape.

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Since 1990 Gian J. Quasar has investigated a broad range of mysterious subjects, from strange disappearances to serial murders, earning in that time the unique distinction of being likened to “the real life Kolchak.” However, he is much more at home with being called The Quester or Q Man. “He’s bloody eccentric, an historian with no qualifications who sticks his nose into affairs and gets results.” He is the author of several books, one of which inspired a Resolution in Congress.

HorrorScope– New Foreword on The ZODIAC Killer.

I have been agitated over the last week trying to rewrite the introduction to HorrorScope. Here is a rough draft of what shall become the final draft. The introduction to any of my books is always the first and last thing that I write and rewrite.

Foreword to HorrorScope— “This is the Zodiac Speaking” by Gian J. Quasar.

 

Civilization had never seen such a thing before. The fabric of American society was viewed as coming apart. National curiosity was now dissolving into national disdain and even national jitters. A counterculture within the younger generation was spreading like a contagion. They cast off the conformity of the “establishment” to become dropouts, long-haired hippies, anti-war flower children, and radical student yippies. San Francisco was the center. An elegant society tiptoed around the psychedelic flamboyance of peace, love, and drugs, wondering when this unnerving fad was going to ebb. Yet a year and a half after the momentous Summer of Love there was no end in sight. The river of youth had become a torrent, entering the city’s tenderloin and parks to reside in “Love-ins,” to adorn themselves in symbols, tie-dye, Indian feathers, to smoke hashish, and to hear the preaching of the Age of Aquarius.

There could be nothing more at a contrast to this mixture of giddy colors and staid culture, diamond tiaras, minks, and daisies behind the ear, than a midnight, lonely rural road near Vallejo, a utilitarian city across the bay. Shots rang out. Gun powder flashed. Two teenagers lay dead, a boy and a girl.

Now in December 1968 the mainstream youth still looked like their parents— clean cut guys with thick-rimmed glasses, and gals with elaborate coiffured hairdos like their mothers. They still necked at petting spots. This was an accepted “taboo.” Lovers’ lanes were still unofficially designated. These were the victims. The victims were John and Jane Q. Citizen, not tunic wearing gurus and licentious members of “Love-ins.” Kids at a petting spot on a backroad. Here the terror began. Like a drop that starts a ripple, it began here in this drab, unlikely place and grew wider and wider with each victim until it sent San Francisco and the metropolitan Bay Area into a panic.

At the height of the panic in the summer of 1969 the killer introduced himself to the public. Like a pompous comic strip villain he proclaimed:

 

This is the Zodiac Speaking

 

Throughout the frightful autumn that followed, boasting letters revealed a hideous villain with dark, misplaced humor, bragging after his murders, threatening more murders, then convoluting everything with threats to become a sniper, to plant bombs in order to wipe out school busses, and demanding appeasement. He had to be taken seriously. He had murdered, and the intricately drawn coded ciphers, hand drawn diagrams and maps he included with his deranged letters showed an obsessive and calculating mind that spent hours just on his terror campaign alone. A bizarre villain was being born in print and published in the newspapers and talked about on radio and on TV. He was The Zodiac. The name doesn’t reflect witty press sensationalism nor is it a catchy police moniker. He is, in fact, only one of a few serial killers to give himself his own handle. It reflects his own megalomania as the celestial controller of the game of fate, in his case the game of death.

Jubilation at murder wasn’t his only motive for writing his bragging letters. The killer rejoiced over the fact his victims would be his slaves in his afterlife, thereby invoking some primitive, arcane religion that seemed inspired by the esoteric mysticism of the disturbing hippie movement.

Playing upon the fears of the time may have been his motive, but by writing letter after letter he was needlessly taking risks, potentially giving clues that could lead to his capture. None of this was necessary to cover his identity. Indeed, its only purpose seemed the creation of his alter ego “The Zodiac.” For years he kept the Bay Area in suspense with his threats. “Be sure to print this part . . . or I’ll do my thing”— the threat not of a mystical maniac wanting more reincarnated slaves but paradoxically that of a cheap gunsel extorting fear.

Such contradictions, red herrings, and false clues would pepper his crime spree, making it impossible to figure out the heads or tails of his actual motive. One thing seems certain. He loved the image he put on paper, and the alter ego he created in print came to possess him in real life. For his only slaying in daytime he hid his face under a sinister black hood. It hung down incongruously over his shabby appearance and thereon was neatly sewn the symbol of the celestial Zodiac. Since the victims were by no means meant to survive (one was stabbed 6 times, the other 21), we were never to know he had dressed like this. But one of them survived to give us the account. Obviously, this outfit meant something purely to him. The Zodiac’s crime spree was clearly a bit more complex than merely a means to publicity.

Another thing seems certain. He believed his boast that he had been too clever for the police. From the very first moment he put his deadly words to print with that odd blue felt tip pen he used, he was sure that nothing he had written could ever be used to lead to him, and if he should be seen while committing his murders he seemed equally confident there was nothing in his appearance that could lead to uncovering his true identity.

A couple of times there was a rare glimpse of the man who must have been the reality behind the boastful facade, and each time it proved that the truth of this egotistical killer was rather bland. For 1969, he was for one of his time an odd amalgam. He was a chunky gorilla-like figure, about 5 foot 10 inches tall, about 225 pounds, between 25 and 30 years old, wearing obsolete pleated wool dress pants offset by a casual dark cotton windbreaker, and he shuffled about in high rim Air Force shoes. His hair was stylized, a fashion as out-of-date as his old pants. He had a large, round face with high cheekbones. He was not mainstream, nor was he a hippie.

The bland truth of the Zodiac does not diminish his evil. On the contrary, it confirms his unique arrogance and should be expected from a villain whose method had nothing particularly ingenious about it. The Zodiac was essentially a clumsy drive-by shooter. He stalked late night couples at rural lovers’ lanes, and from behind the bright splatter of a flashlight he fired away at his surprised victims. Yet boasting was so important that from the bloodied, impromptu scenes of death he hurried to confess to police operators or to his dark lair to scribble his bragging letters and set in motion his publicity campaign. The truth of the Zodiac is that of a pudgy little man sniggering over his poison pen letters while his TV screen flickered with images of pall bearers carrying out his victims to the hearse. The truth is he need only remain essentially a drive-by shooter because his victims were important to him only insofar as they were another ante in his game of death. The reality of The Zodiac Killer is shot up cars and kids at remote petting spots.

It would be unwise, however, to judge the killer based on a contrast between his awkward appearance and his grand, celestial alter ego The Zodiac. There was always a cerebral quality to Zodiac that is belied by his sloppy modus operandi and it extended far beyond his gloating letters. For all of his uncouth look, for all of his amateurish execution, somehow, equally mysterious, that frumpy gorilla neatly managed to melt into the very different background of mainstream life and evade an enormous dragnet.

In fact, as this volume unfolds, the reader will discover that Zodiac devoted enormous time and effort to carry off what appeared to be very spontaneous crimes. Zodiac lived and killed to create his alter ego. Indeed he made such a success out of it that despite the fact he is only one of several killers who stalked lovers’ lanes he is the second most famous serial killer in world history, ranking only behind London’s Jack the Ripper.

It began with his first letter. When the San Francisco Bay Area newspapers warned a psychotic killer was afoot, the Zodiac had guaranteed a large audience for himself. Under threat of a metropolitan wide “killing rampage,” he had cleverly manipulated the newspapers to print cryptograms of code symbols he had sent with the letter. His cover letter taunted the police that his identity was concealed therein, and he enticed the public to uncover where he’d strike next. Nothing excites our imaginations more than a puzzle. A metropolitan area sat down to try and figure it out. When the cipher was finally decoded, all and sundry read the gleeful but simple syntax: “I like killing people because it is so much fun.”

History has shown us that in 1969 network news would be at its apogee. The colorful antiestablishment movement was part of the reason network news scored so high in American homes. Racial tensions in the nation, anti-war protests, and the latest news on the war in Vietnam were other factors. The moonshot had long been promised and in the summer of 1969 it would be fulfilled. Political assassinations had drawn Americans to the TV. It had only been 6 years since President Kennedy had been assassinated, 4 years since Malcolm X had been brutally gunned down, less than 2 years since Martin Luther King Jr. and then Bobby Kennedy’s assassinations. News was really happening, and it was news that had mattered. It was news at hand.

Whether this phantom killer’s publicity campaign of murder is a reflection of the times or inspired because of the massive stage news could give, his threats of a “killing rampage” rode the crest of a popular wave the likes of which was never to be seen again.

More than anything it was the Zodiac’s desire to loom like a clutching shadow over Gotham. Inflicting terror was ultimately his greatest motive, and he used his murders as a résumé to be taken seriously. His murder spree lasted for only a short time, but his love for terror (or for his alter ego) kept him writing these poison pen letters for years, each claiming more and more victims and each threatening to take more victims. Each new letter he sent was introduced as an oracle: “This is the Zodiac Speaking.” Each was sluiced with sarcasm, and with his dark humor each in its way was a sinister chuckle. Each in turn was signed by the symbol of the celestial Zodiac— a circle with a crosshair through it. It looked little different from a gunsight, and the double meaning was no doubt intended. Then he played the ultimate hand in his game. He vanished. To this day the San Francisco Bay Area has never forgotten, and the most bragged about murders in history remain unsolved.

Insert Zodiac symbol

      This is The Zodiac Killer. He is inexorably linked with the summer and tumultuous autumn of 1969, but his legacy is decades of anxiety that he’d return, decades of frustration that a killer escaped justice; not just a killer, but the most boastful, haughty killer in the annals of crime. “The police shall never catch me,” he boasted in one letter, “because I have been too clever for them.” He won. He got away. The faded ink of his bragging rubs this fact into our face even today.

It was perhaps the innocence of the times that inspired the police to hope the killer had died or had been imprisoned or institutionalized— thereby paying in a sort of proxy for the savage murders he had done. But advances in criminology have underscored far too often that serial killers quit and go on to lead relatively normal lives. Therefore for nearly 50 years the Zodiac could have lived a prosperous life, and in his arrogance merely shrugged off his killing spree and years of threatening letters as a mere fad in his otherwise exemplary life.

During this time the Zodiac could have rested assured that his true identity was safe, not because he was forgotten to history but because his crime spree had become a focal point of popular culture. He had not only escaped, the context of his crimes has become obscured by folklore, a folklore so elaborate that it has covered his trail beyond even his wildest dreams. Despite only having killed a fraction of what he bragged about, he succeeded in creating a personality cult of crime far more successfully than he ever could have hoped or have even foreseen.

Professional and amateur detectives alike could not believe that one who had sought and cultivated so much media attention could merely quit. The Zodiac therefore became a potential suspect in every local murder that took place thereafter. The Zodiac had been cunning enough to have encouraged this view. In his childishly misspelled blue felt, he had once written: “I shall no longer announce to anyone when I comitt my murders, they shall look like routine robberies, killings of anger, + a few fake accidents, etc.” The legend bought into it.

Part of the folklore of the master criminal Zodiac has proposed that if all the unsolved murders over the USA dating from the late 1960s to today were connected by an imaginary line they would form a giant Z— proof that the astrological assassin continued his crime spree in secret and killed his victims according to locations where he could create his astrological symbol.

Amateur detectives have examined his undeciphered cryptograms and poison pen pal letters with a metaphoric zeal usually devoted only to Biblical exegesis; each sure that the fateful clue to his goading, infamous identity lay therein. Mathematics has been done to try and find a code or sequence in the ciphers that would finger the culprit. Others have put together all the misplaced letters in the misspelled words in Zodiac’s nasty missives, trying to see if the misplaced letters would together form a coherent sentence or confession.

An entire subculture has developed, little different than the fans of a comic strip hero, who live each day as if it and they are integral in the continuing saga of the Zodiac. In this realm college professors have been accused. Ted Kascinski seems perpetually suspected of every crime. Poor Leigh Allen reveled in the limelight over the years he was suspected. When he died in 1992 it even merited national news, billed as the passing of the man suspected of having been “The infamous Zodiac.” Cranks have offered relatives and old friends as suspects. Others have insisted on elaborate conspiracy theories. Those who were 50 years old at the time— doctors, car dealers and winos— have been accused in their 80s and 90s and in one case even DNA tested. None of these suspects were ever anchored to the Zodiac crimes by the actual evidence.

We are now on the cusp of history, that point where the crime spree will soon be beyond the reach of satisfactory solution, buried in time, that substance we cannot dig out of the way. It will take its place with Jack the Ripper and become a topic of suspects and economic rehash rather than actual investigation. Right now is our last chance to solve it, to place in order the facts and follow them through to the villain himself.

The need to expose this killer is enormous. It is not for the narrow piety to bring closure to the victims’ families. Nor is it simply for the sake of closing the book on a case of crime. The ‘Zodiac’ Killer played a game with the public. He did not murder to merely give himself a thrill. The victims were a means to an end to glorify this frumpy gorilla’s much more imaginative alter ego. Such a braggart is unique in the annals of crime. He threw the gauntlet down and forced society to play his terror game. This gauntlet, as all gauntlets, must eventually be picked up and slapped in his face, even if that face is only the reputation of a long passed and seemingly respected citizen.

I picked up that gauntlet. It is not boastful to say so. Many have done so, and it has come my turn. I have little interest in criminology, but investigative method is investigative method, whether the object is a truth of science or the identity of a serial killer, whether it is in the hand of a criminalist, journalist, or biologist. I enjoy pursuing mystery and solving mystery; and the identity of the Zodiac is one of the greatest mysteries in true crime.

What I have added to cold case is my approach. I treat a cold case like a hot case. I completely reinvestigate the crimes as though they just happened. In essence, I start all over. I visit the crime scenes. I examine the evidence and, more importantly, I look for clues. Contrary to what may be public perception, cold case is mostly processing, comparing any information that comes in to a few pieces of evidence distilled and preserved by the original investigators, evidence that is considered conclusive to identify the killer or exonerate an innocent man.

By reinvestigating from the very beginning, I plunge both myself and the reader back to a volatile and colorful era. The crimes and times shall unravel before us. Context is everything. Within context lie the clues, and often clues are more important than evidence, for upon investigation clues lead to evidence, and new clues lead to new evidence. And this case needs new evidence. Zodiac, in fact, made mistakes in his letters, and he made mistakes within the context of his crimes. Only by ignoring 48 years of folklore could these be uncovered again. Only by reliving the crimes and times of the Zodiac could that one kernel be uncovered that leads to the identity of this cerebral braggart.

In this volume I will deliver the body of the Zodiac. But it takes more to get at the soul— why he killed and why he stopped. Was he a reluctant killer? Was the terror campaign a ruse to cover some other motive? Were the deaths necessary in some greater scheme or ritual? The questions may not seem as important after the killer’s hood is removed. To unmask the Zodiac is to reveal more than the soul of the killer. It is to isolate the pudgy, insecure madman from the pomp of his publicity. This will destroy his evil soul. The result is an empty hood devoid of any substance of the theatrical master controller that he created from dark shadows. It leaves us with his true image, the one he drew for himself in the cowardly barbarity of his crimes.

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Since 1990 Gian J. Quasar has investigated a broad range of mysterious subjects, from strange disappearances to serial murders, earning in that time the unique distinction of being likened to “the real life Kolchak.” However, he is much more at home with being called The Quester or Q Man. “He’s bloody eccentric, an historian with no qualifications who sticks his nose into affairs and gets results.” He is the author of several books, one of which inspired a Resolution in Congress.

The Long Road to Royalty

We poured in and we poured out of the Roman Empire. Some 40 years after Septimius Severus (around 265 AD) Rome could have been sacked. But the Germans decamped and headed out, and in 275 AD Aurelian hastily built the walls of Rome, much of which still stand today. Later we poured in and never left.

The Romans thought their civilization could never end. They ate themselves up as a result, never thinking their infighting could erode their way of life– civil wars continued, backstabbing, self indulgence, decadence. It came to the point where the Roman armies were basically the German troops, used by various emperors to pit against rivals. They were the Foederati– federated into the empire’s service but not Romans.

Most Germans didn’t want to be Romans. But some loved the Roman lifestyle, and for the last 100 years of the empire basically the greatest power behind the thrown were German headmen– Stilicho, Ricimer, for examples. Despite German power behind some of the Emperors, Rome was sacked twice by Germans– first in 410 AD by the Visigoths and then in 455 by the Vandals, who spent 14 days doing to Rome whatever they pleased.

The sacking of Rome revealed to what an extent the empire was sham in the West. The Germans wanted their pay. They didn’t give a hang about past Roman glory and traditions, and eventually there was no need to maintain the slacker culture that had become the Romans. In 476 AD Odoacer and his Ostrogoths invaded. The Eastern Roman Emperor at Constantinople had to compromise. He felt anyway. Odoacer would be recognized as the Western Roman Emperor. Odoacer declined. The sham was over. He proclaimed himself King of Italy.

The empire was over. Politically, there wasn’t much to notice. The Germans had been the army and the power for a long time.

Germans were pouring in now and they wanted the land and they weren’t going to be the army for any restored puppets in Rome. The Suebians settled on the German side of the Alps but also went into Spain. The Visigoths descended into Spain, the Goths held Italy for 100 years until pushed north by Justinian’s armies . . .until the Burgundians held their line and the Lombards invaded. Then the Goths returned. The Franks poured into Roman Gaul, giving it eventually their name “France.” Alamanni came into Rhaetia (parts of Switzerland), the Vandals had long settled into North Africa.

Germans were very different from Romans. Rome had viewed itself as a republic, even to the end. “Emperors” were merely the commander-in-chief despite eventually surrounding themselves with all the trappings of Greek royalty. “King” was still a hated title to Romans, and no emperor ever used it. The emperors were more often elected or proclaimed by the Senate, especially late in the empire after they had defeated another general. Few dynasties of father-son lasted for long.

But German kings were hewn from hard times. They were tribal leaders like Aragorn in Lord of the Rings who held their people together and even led them to greener pastures. Such times and conditions allowed, but German thought, only the finest to rise to the top. The most noble. The most ethical. And such fine breeds perpetuated themselves. Germans were all about heredity.

This is the origin of Adelgeschlecht– Noble breed, species, family. Born noble. The adelgeschlechtern alone were the nobles of Europe. They were descended of the German chieftains and kings of the early invasions. The greatest of the families rose to Royal status, that is, adelgeschlectern bearing the anointment of the Church. Legitimate kings can only come from the adelgeschlecht. They must be of the noble species. That is the attitude.

Of these families, the Capets were the most noteworthy and consistent.  The head Capet came to be King of France, and over the centuries since the fall of Charlemagne’s weak attempt to restore Western Roman glory, the line of the Capets remained unbroken. Various cousin branches inherited by right of blood succession when the last male of the other branch had died without male heir.  When the Valois branch died out, the head cousin of the Bourbon branch became King of France.

France was the personal estate of the king. It was as any property in a family– it was legally passed on to the next rightful heir.

Louis XIV, the grandson of the first Bourbon king, epitomized the Royal absolutism of the French Monarchy. He was the first gentleman of Europe. He had not one snobby bone in his body. He was the state. He was France. He was its owner. When his second confessor, a man from the peasantry, would pollinate the halls of Versailles about how he was from the peasantry and proud of it, Louis Le Grande would sit there and stare blankly. He didn’t know what the point of the dissertation was. There was no a difference between the peasantry and the aristocracy in Louis’ eyes. They were all equally his subjects.

Louis XIV, figure by George Stuart.

 

Since the beginning of France, the flag of France was the personal badge of the king. Just as any noble flew his coat of arms over his estate, so was the flag of France the shield of the king.  The kings had no one to impress. They were impressed by no one for “who” they were.

The Bourgeoisie (city dwelling culture) are snobs. Superficial and always trying to look better than the Jones. This is a shallow and dangerous attitude in power.

I am not being academic here. All this does have a purpose. When France went into upheavals (The Deluge) in Louis XVI’s time, the madness of the revolution destroyed much. Napoleon followed. He was the epitome of illegitimate power. He was a dictator who called himself emperor. He was no adelgeschlecht. Like all illegitimate government he created a greater abstract that all had to serve. He was the head servant rather than true leader. He did things for the “glory of France,” which costs millions of lives and shattered Europe.

All dictators and social movements thereafter have been the same– some higher abstract ennobles them to wars and imposing socio-economic beliefs on others. Millions die because these “leaders” are only servants of a higher purpose. There were no world wars with kings. The king didn’t care what the label in your clothes was, nor did he care for the hatchworks of some cocktail crowd. The kings of France had to do what was best for France, for their people, because it was their estate. And who does not take care of their own property? There was no higher abstract than the king’s responsibility before God to his own estate. All kings took care of their own property.  Thus there were only skirmishes compared to the world wars of drumbeating of French Revolutionaries and 20th Century pious communists and Nazis.

But I digress.

Some kings perhaps were not so good at it, but some were not as bad as history has painted them. Louis XVI was trying to deal with the problems, but he was slow and stubborn and with each remedy put forward there was always an attempt by those helping him to grab more power.

When Louis XVIII, his brother, was restored to the throne, there were those of his entourage who wanted him to reverse everything the Revolution had done for the last 20 years. He wouldn’t do it. The nobles had been choking the throne. He knew his brother could have become the leader of the Revolution instead of its greatest victim. But he hadn’t known how.

France had desperately needed Aragorn to lead them in the troubled time, but Louis XVI had too many obstacles. Louis XVIII tried, so did his brother Charles X, but then there was yet another revolution. Charles X abdicated. For 20 minutes or so his eldest son was Louis XIX. . .until he too abdicated. Tragic reminders of the brutality of the Revolution of 1789; and sadly that the throne was a job, not the seat of the owner of the estate of France. His younger cousin, Henry, was not of the same mind. Henry was technically King of France as Henry V, between August 2 and 9 1830, before he fled France.

You see, the throne had been offered to the next and hated branch of the Capets– Bourbon-Orleans, the descendants of the loathsome traitor Phillipe Egualite. Louis Phillipe was proclaimed “King of the French” but not King of France. He struck the French as just like his ambitious ancestor. Charles X had asked Louis Phillipe to declare Henry, King of France. But he didn’t. Instead he worked his magic and had himself proclaimed by the National Assembly as King.

To make a long story short, after Louis-Phillipe the monarchy was abolished. But France had too many problems ruling itself. It would see shaky “Republics” where horrid snobs kept trying to serve some abstract, and that time when that ghastly Napoleon III called himself an Emperor.

Naturally, there was a deputation to Henry to make him King of France again. Negotiations broke down, however, as Henry was true to his heritage. He refused to agree to the tricolor as the flag of France. His flag, the arms of the head Capet, is the banner of France.

The line of Henry died out, leaving France with the branch of the family it truly did not like. Louis Phillipe had not even been King of France. He had been King of the French, since in all legality he was not King of France, with Henry living. The French, as you know, are sticklers for such things. They are also the hardest nosed people in the world.

Royal sentiment has remained. France has trouble governing itself. It has really never known a democracy. It has strange election processes. Everybody talks at each other rather than to each other. De Gaulle ruled as a dictator. He even admitted it was impossible to rule France effectively when he asked “How do you rule a country that has 300 cheeses?”

A royalist movement has always existed. But the greatest impediment has been Bourbon-Orleans. They were hated and not legitimate, and when one got the throne, again by betraying his cousins, he was only accorded the title King of the French, since the estate of France could not be his with the elder cousin alive. It is the property of the head Capet.

In truth, Bourbon-Orleans was only the next branch of the Capet because of legalities. The Hapsburg line was coming to an end in Spain in the late 17th century. To make for a peaceful transition the Spanish agreed to Phillipe, Duc D’Anjou, the grandson of Louis XIV, as King Phillip V. The deal was made and at the Treaty of Utrecht, Phillipe agreed that his bloodline would renounce its rights to the throne of France.  European powers were too afraid of a France and Spain governed by the same king.

So Phillipe became King of Spain. But his direct male bloodline did not die out. And despite Spain following Salic Law (direct male succession), surprisingly the present King of Spain, though the head Bourbon, is not the senior male of Phillip V. Louis Alphonse of Bourbon-Segovia is the senior of the line of Louis XIV. He has renounced the renunciation of his ancestor and proclaimed himself Duke of Anjou and Louis XX.

There should be no consideration of Bourbon-Orleans anymore. Yet there are still those who seek them to the throne of France. It’s going to go nowhere.

France is in the throes of upheaval again. De Gaulle admitted to the difficulty of ruling France. The reason is the successive illegitimate governments and pretenders calling themselves kings and emperors. The only line left is the line of Louis D’Anjou. The question is: would he be like the direct Bourbon line?

It is only the attitude of the Bourbon kings that can restore France. So in our next post, let’s look at just what this famous attitude was. They had inherited an estate created from the earliest times after the Roman empire. The Capets had kept it separate from the encroaching power of the Holy Roman Empire.  They were famous for a lack of snobbery, something that had always impressed their very chauvinistic people.

*         *          *

Since 1990 Gian J. Quasar has investigated a broad range of mysterious subjects, from strange disappearances to serial murders, earning in that time the unique distinction of being likened to “the real life Kolchak.” However, he is much more at home with being called The Quester or Q Man. “He’s bloody eccentric, an historian with no qualifications who sticks his nose into affairs and gets results.” He is the author of several books, one of which inspired a Resolution in Congress.